Mos Def's postponement offered me the chance to catch the John Mellencamp/Los Lobos double bill at the Auditorium Theatre. I still can't get used to sitting at rock-ish concerts. Los Lobos got us standing a few times, but Mellencamp had us "at attention" throughout, even cell-ing our friends for a chorus of how life goes on. Check the Music Blog for a full report.
I wasn't sure how the mandala dissolution ceremony this morning at Colgate Crozer Rochester Divinity was going to play out. The lit said the mandala would be swept into a nearby body of water. The closest water to Colgate that I could think of was Highland Reservoir. That would be quite a trek in this weather, or quite an auto entourage. All this speculating wasn't "being in the present," so I decided to let go of all assumptions and open to whatever was going to be.
About two dozen people gathered at Colgate Divinity, most of them having taken classes there and therefore having their own pillow or mat to sit on. The rest of us took up chairs or sat on the floor. Enclosed on three sides with fabric walls, the mandala sat on a platform surrounded by "flags," an altar of offerings leading to it. The offerings were an assorted mix of intricate sculptures of colored oatmeal(!), fruits, cookies, and candies. The presence of Little Debbie Christmas Tree cakes and Hershey's cherry-filled kisses struck me as odd, but not as odd as the amount of cameras taking pictures of the mandala. Here's this symbol that will be swept away and loosed into a body of water, "a reminder of the impermanence and the futility of attachment," being recorded for all-time in digital. Yeah, I took a few too.
What I thought would be about an hour-long celebration, turned into an over-full morning. (Another reminder that speculation gets me into trouble.) The next few hours were a steady stream of chantings and prayers accompanied by ringing bells, cymbals, drums, and more digital displays in the guise of sound effects from an iPod run through a sound board. Many pots were placed on our heads, the contents dribbled into our cupped hands, which we then drank, drying our hands by rubbing them down the back of our heads. A small red ball of something was also consumed, cards were put to our chests, but by far the most fun was the tossing of dry saffron rice into the air at the end of prayers. The floor began to look like the aftermath from a wedding.
I felt a bit like the Christian girl at a Latin mass, not knowing any of the words, or when to do things. But one of the monks took pity on me and gave me one-word instructions: head, hands, eat, drink, keep, toss. After the dismantling of the altar, His Eminence Choeje Ayang Rinpoche gave a soothing talk on using our wisdom and the acceptance of differences. I zoned out for a lot of it, but it was a very pleasing and beneficial-feeling zoning.
His Eminence then gave us each a laminated photo, a business card, and a blessing, and baggies were distributed to take any of the leftover blessed treats.
The actual dissolution of the mandala went rather quickly. H.E. scraped the grains into a pile with a metal pie/cake spatula, put some in a baggie, and then gave each of us a plastic "dime-bag" full to take home. I'd always thought they designed the mandalas as they went, or possibly even followed a plan, but the design was fixed on the board; a sort of sand paint-by-numbers.
We then drove to the Genesee Waterways Center on Elmwood Avenue where more prayers and songs were sung as the grains were cast into the river, all while people stood next to the monks, having others take their pictures. Kind of tacky if you ask me. (Even though it was cold and rather windy by the banks, the monks wore no coats. When I asked one why, the only answer I got was, "No coat.") From there everyone went their separate ways. I went to eat a very late breakfast.
Next up: "A Natural History" at Booksmart, possibly some other art receptions (I'm not promising anything, considering what happened last week), and the VOA tour bus.