Tibetan monks participate in O’side ‘days of art’

Six Tibetan monks began creating a sand mandala Wednesday at the Oceanside Museum of Art, hoping to raise awareness about their culture and money for their monastery in southern India.

The monks are members of the Gaden Shartse Monastery, where about 1,500 Buddhist monks live, said Jampa Lobsang, one of the men. The founders of the monastery fled Tibet in 1959 after China invaded their land, he said.

“We have two main purposes,” Lobsang said. “To share our art, to share our prayer chants, our religion and our culture — that is our main intention. … The second is that we have to raise money for our monastery.”

The group began building the mandala — an intricate, colorful drawing that represents the palace of a deity — in the lobby of the downtown Oceanside museum Wednesday afternoon. The mandala will take about five days to complete, Lobsang said.

The creation of the mandala is part of the museum’s Free Family Art Days and the Oceanside Days of Art, an annual two-day art festival taking place Saturday and Sunday on Pier View Way.

Museum Director Daniel Foster said the mandala was in keeping with the museum’s mission to offer a diversity of art to the community.

“It seemed like natural time and place for us to bring these six monks to the museum,” Foster said. “The museum cares about all practices of art and culture that unifies our understanding of diversity in our world.”

On Wednesday afternoon, the monks held an opening ceremony that included chants and music created with bells and Tibetan horns.

Lobsang explained that Tibetan Buddhists believe that every space is occupied by spirits. The ceremony was their way of asking the spirit for permission to built the mandala in the space, he said.

Among the two dozen people who attended the ceremony was Oceanside author Victor Villasenor. He said the chants made him feel “peace, happiness and harmony.”

Ellen Speert, who is the director of the California Center for Creative Renewal and who helped bring the monks to the museum, said the group would also participate in private events such as home blessings during their stay in Oceanside. The events, along with the sales of various crafts at the museum, will help raise money for their community.

On Sunday, the museum will host a closing ceremony that will include removing the sand mandala and taking the dusty remnants to throw away in beach. Destroying the artwork aligns with the Buddhist belief that nothing in life is permanent.

“These beautiful human beings who bring love into the world and healing with their creation of art that is about things that we can’t hold on to,” Speert said.

Viewing of the mandala is free at the museum’s lobby, 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside.