“There’s so many external beautiful art but internal the good heart is most important thing. I always say be a good person a warm-hearted person because that is important”
Just thinking of this quote by Tenzin Deshek, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who lives in Alabama and created this sand mandala in April at the Birmingham Museum of Art. We got to see him take the sands — tiny marble particles — and tap them along, making lines and filling in voids:
There was an article in the San Antonio paper this week about the mandala made there, and what happens once it’s completed:
After the ceremony, the monks cleared away the sand, placing it in hundreds of small plastic bags that were distributed to viewers. They then walked to the nearby San Antonio River, depositing the remaining sand in the water, where it flowed downstream and disappeared.
It made me think of tashlich (a symbolic act of tossing away past bad acts and gaining a fresh slate), which was done this year with a congregation at the beach. This year, my boys saw some jellyfish floating around, and seagulls always swoop in once they see bits of bread floating about too. The crumbs eventually flow away with the waves and disappear. It’s a time to reflect and think about improvement.
“There’s so many external beautiful art but internal the good heart is most important thing.”