Ephemeral Art: In the Realm of the Buddha

For more than 50 years, the Venerable Ngawang Chojor has created intricate works of art before destroying them in an act of reverent meditation that embraces the ephemeral nature of life.

On a table in the Sackler Gallery pavilion, the 75-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk used colored sand to create a mandala, a two-dimensional representation of an imagined palace where Buddhist deities reside. Created over eight days, the mandala celebrated the opening of In the Realm of the Buddha, two companion exhibits that explore the beauty and history of Tibetan art.

Wearing a red robe with a red sweater and brown hiking shoes, Ngawang slowly circled the table on a rolling office chair, filling intricate geometric shapes with thousands of grains of colored sand. He had mapped the ancient circular design using a ruler, compass, and pen with silver ink. The colored sand is created by mixing vegetable dyes or water-based pigments with crushed white sand and soft sandstone.

After filling a thin ridged funnel with sand, Ngawang rubbed a second funnel against it to release a precise stream of sand as the rhythmic sound of his work echoed through the pavilion. The mandala depicted Chenrezig, the Buddhist deity of compassion, as a lotus flower on a moon disc with eight petals symbolizing the directions on a compass.

While I watched, I felt a quiet sense of wonder from the beauty of the mandala and from Ngawang’s peaceful presence and lifelong commitment to his work. On a darker note, his story also illustrates the troubled fate of Tibet.

Ngawang began his monastic studies when he was 13 years old and started making mandalas when he was 17 as part of an apprenticeship in the ritual arts at Namgyal Monastery, the personal monastery of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, Tibet. During the Chinese invasion in 1959, he fled with the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans to India where the monastery was reestablished in Dharamshala along with the Tibetan government in exile.

In 1993, Ngawang moved to the United States and he now lives in a Tibetan community in Madison, Wisconsin. He is active with the Wisconsin Tibetan Association and offers educational mandala workshops through the Wisconsin Arts Board. He also acted with Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet.

On March 21, the mandala at the Sackler Gallery was blessed before it was destroyed, swept into a pile of rainbow-colored sand before it was dispersed to recognize the impermanence of being. A camera over the table captured a time-lapse movie of the making of the mandala.

On the lower level of the Sackler Gallery, a Tibetan shrine room has been created using more than 250 objects dating from the 12^th to 19^th centuries owned by collector Alice S. Kandell. Bathed in red and gold, the shrine is crowded with Buddha statues, ornate wooden chests, and rich tapestries. Ritualistic implements include offering bowls, a crown depicting fierce deities, gongs, and a Tibetan rosary. A trumpet made from a human thigh bone was used to summon ghosts and demons to symbolically feed them one’s body and ego as a step toward enlightenment.

Many of the objects are striking, but the shrine room is best viewed as a whole. The sacred space transforms the museum’s sterile walls into a milieu of an ancient culture that has survived repeated attempts to destroy it. 

The adjoining gallery rooms house Lama, Patron, Artist: The Great Situ Panchen with work designed, painted, or commissioned by Situ, an artist and teacher who founded the Palpung monastery in Tibet in the 18^th century. The paintings embody the Encampment Style, which places Tibetan figures based on Indian painting designs in landscapes inspired by Chinese art of the Yuan and Ming courts.

The most impressive piece is a large gilded bronze statue of White Tara, the Buddhist goddess of long life and compassion. Seated in the lotus position and adorned with elaborate jewelry, she has elongated earlobes and a third eye in her forehead signifying enlightenment.

In the Realm of the Buddha will be on display until July 18 and is worth a visit. It offers a rare glimpse into a centuries-old artistic tradition that is in danger of dying out because of Chinese oppression in Tibet. As masters of the mandala like Ngawang move on to the next life, I hope a new generation of Tibetans will continue their inspiring work.