Like synchronised swimmers or devotees in salute, the gathered raised their cellphone cameras in unison. Their lenses were trained on the centre of the room with throbbing compulsion to immortalise the moment in pixels. The subject of the frenzy was a Tibetan sand mandala created at the Wits Origins Centre at the beginning of the month.
It was about to be swept up and destroyed. This after a team of four visiting Buddhist monks dedicated five days to create it with meditative care and slow trickles of coloured sand set down in distinct patterns.
The irony of the furious tapping of cellphone screens to photograph the mandala was not lost on Geshe Lobsang Dhondup, resident monk at the Lam Rim Buddhist centre in Vrededorp, Johannesburg. The human condition of attachment is our mortal reality, he says.
In this case it was attachment to the sacred Tibetan artwork that in seconds would be gone, swept up into a mound to be returned to its essential nature of ground-up marble. Breaking up a sand mandala is an exercise in accepting the truth of impermanence and the cyclical nature of things, says Geshe Lobsang.
Human beings' almost involuntary grip on the things we consider too beautiful, too joyful, too precious to surrender is a cause of suffering, according to Buddhist teaching. But compassion is also part of Buddhist teaching and it's why, with a soft chortle, Geshe Lobsang, who officiated at the ritual dismantling of the mandala, declared to a packed Origins Centre that taking photographs of the disappearing mandala was "also okay".
The sand mandala ceremonies and blessings were held in three different South African cities this month, organised by the small Tibetan community in the country and the Tibet Society of South Africa. They mark a worldwide year of gratitude to India as the country that hosted the Dalai Lama when he was forced to flee Tibet in 1959, nine years after the Chinese occupied Tibet.
In SA, the ceremonies are homage to Nelson Mandela, who would have celebrated his centenary this year. Madiba had personally invited the Dalai Lama to set up an Office of Tibet in the country when he was president. The Pretoria office celebrates 20 years in SA this year.
"The sand mandala we chose for SA is the mandala of compassion. It is the same as it has always been and like all mandalas it is the representation of our psychic reality on the deepest level," says Geshe Lobsang.
Sand mandalas as an ancient art form allow for layers of symbolism. He explains that this extends to understanding the idea of small parts making up the whole; pausing in the present moment; the lesson of patience in committed effort; and the confidence to look on all things passing just as the nature of transition and transformation.
But Geshe Lobsang says a sand mandala will have done its job equally well even if it simply gives the observer peace of mind or momentary appreciation in watching a beautiful piece of art being made.
On each of the five days it took to complete the mandala, members of the public were invited to watch its progress. The monk would funnel naturally coloured sand through a tool called a chakpur, controlling the flow of the sand by rubbing a metal rod against it on the outside.
For Professor Amanda Esterhuysen of the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies and manager of the Origins Centre, the process of making the mandalas in this way was a kind of auditory and vibrational meditation.
She says hosting the Tibetan sand mandala was a perfect fit for a centre that is about telling the story of human beings' varied accounts of beginnings and endings and what we consider important in the in-between.
"Many ancient traditions of art have religious, spiritual and social significance and the making of the sand mandala fit very well into a space that is about academic freedom and about exposing people to each other and to different cultures and traditions," says Esterhuysen.
Some sand from the dismantled mandala was distributed as individual blessings while the majority was destined to be ritually blessed and tipped into a river on course to the ocean.
TIBETAN DIASPORA IN SA
SA is one of 13 countries around the world that have an Office of Tibet. These are the official agencies of the 14th Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration and exist as de facto embassies.
Ever since the Dalai Lama fled Tibet he has been hosted by the India government and people. Dharamshala is now home to the spiritual head of the Tibetan people and is where the government in exile is headquartered. Since his exile, an estimated 150,000 Tibetans have followed in the Dalai Lama's footsteps, settling in Nepal and Bhutan, Canada, America, Europe and Taiwan.
SA's Office in Tibet in Pretoria says the Tibetan community here, including resident monks, total fewer than 10 people. Their activities centre on cultural interchange, building awareness and outreach programmes.
Despite the tiny size of the diaspora in SA, there's sustained interest in Tibet affairs, Tibetan Buddhism, as well as other branches of Buddhism in SA. It is what fuels the growth in organisations such as The Tibet Society of South Africa and Buddhist temples and retreat centres, including Emoyeni in Mooinooi, The Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo and the Bronkhorstspruit Temple...