Mandala Here Today, Then Gone

Tenzin Yignyen, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who has taught in the United States for 20 years, returned to the Ross School in East Hampton last week, where he constructed and later dismantled a sand mandala.

The mandala, a balanced, multicolored geometric composition, is a tool, Mr. Yignyen told students, with which to express the importance of compassion and a good heart. “In schools, I use it as a tool to teach people spiritual practice, how to live an ethical life, and how to develop inner qualities such as compassion, patience, contentment, and so forth,” he said.

With his parents and siblings, Mr. Yignyen fled Tibet at age 2 when Chinese forces, which had occupied the independent country since 1950, crushed an uprising. Along with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and, until recently, political leader of the Tibetan people, he lived in exile in Dharamsala, India. He studied at Namgyal Monastery, the Dalai Lama’s personal monastery in Dharamsala, and was selected to teach at the monastery’s North American seat in Ithaca, N.Y., in 1995. He is now a professor of Tibetan Buddhist studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y.

After the mandala is completed, it is dismantled and the sand is poured into a body of water. “After we fulfill our purpose, we let it go,” Mr. Yignyen said, as a reminder of impermanence. “Nothing lasts forever,” he said. “So enjoy what you have but don’t try to hold on to it.” Also, he said, “Love without attachment is much more pure and strong. To teach that nonattachment and impermanence, we always dismantle the mandala.