I respectfully urge you who study the mystery,
don't pass your days and nights in vain.
Sekito Kisen, Sandokai

The Mandala of Arya Tara

His Holiness the Dalai Lama blesses the Sand Mandala at MIT, April 29, 2009:

See full photo gallery.

Images of the Mandala:

April 24 - May 2, 2009
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Simmons Hall | 229 Vassar Street | Cambridge | MA

For related events and talks click here.

(See the time-lapse page to play time-lapse videos, or download Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4, Video 5)

(thanks to the CSAIL Computational Photography and Video Team: also see their Mandala page)

About Mandala at MIT:
The purpose of this project is to increase social and cultural awareness in the participating communities by exploring the various dimensions of aesthetic and contemplative traditions. Art, music, and storytelling will be among the diverse disciplines we explore. Through these community-building exercises, we will help students share and develop a more positive attitude by acquiring basic tools for conflict resolution and peace building.

Mandala @ MIT is a visionary and reflective exercise that hopes to encourage young minds to visualize and meditate about the positive qualities that they would like to see manifested in the world. It motivates them to express their ideas through art by symbols and patterns. The representation of positive qualities in an ideal world in the form of an artistic pattern has often been referred to as mandala by several cultures.

Sand Mandalas at MIT in Review:
MIT has hosted three traditional Sand Mandalas, in 2004, 2005, and 2007, which were constructed by members of monasteries in India, the Buddhist community at MIT and Ven. Tenzin LS Priyadarshi. The project in 2005 attracted 3,800 people to Simmons Hall to observe the construction of the Mandala and an additional 2,300 people were able to experience the Mandala over a live webcast. Likewise, the project in 2007 attracted some 8,000 people. The Mandala Project in 2006 was an outreach program that involved various schools and colleges in the United States. Students explored the topics of diversity, impermanence, acceptance, and the value of peace through various workshops.

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Co-Sponsored By:

MIT Prajnopaya- The Buddhist Community at MIT
Residential Scholar's Program at Simmons Hall
Generous gift from William R. (1956) and Betsy P. Leitch
The Prajnopaya Foundation
Office of Religious Life at MIT
Residential Life Programs
ARCADE
DormCon
Weekend @ MIT
SAO

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Song on this page: 100 Syllable Mantra of Vajrasattva, from Revival: Sanskrit Buddhist Chants by Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi

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