Baruch College, NEW YORK CITY – For two days (October 7th & 8th) we were pleased to have a special people on our campus. Few people from The Baruch College-Rubin Museum of Art Project and their guests has presented a “Mandala: The Art of Mindfulness”. That was an event where we could see some great performances prepared by Rubin Museum such as: a traditional Cham dance, that “is a lively masked and costumed dance associated with some sects of Buddhism, and is part of Buddhist festivals. The dance is accompanied by music played by monks using traditional Tibetan instruments. The dances often offer moral instruction relating to compassion for sentient beings and are held to bring merit to all who perceive them.” We could hear stories from Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso Rinpoche about his life and his experience of being at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan studies at Sarnath. During “The Art of Mindfulness” those who wanted to participate in a discussion about Tibetan culture could go to the Engelmann Recital Hall. However, those who wanted to see how Tibetan monks were making Mandalas could stay at the room 1-107. Mandala is a symbol representing a Universe. Also, a process of making it and destroying immediately after is done shows how everything in the world (even what is beautiful) does not matter, because nothing lasts forever. At the end we could see once again a wonderful Chan dance and participate in a walk to the East River in order to disseminate the sand that has been used to make a mandala.
