AMES TRIBUNE
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| Monks from Drepung Loseling Monastery, from left, Kelsang Thinley and Gesse Tendor, work on a mandala sand painting on Tuesday in Iowa State University's Memorial Union. Photo by Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune |
IOWA---Monks from Tibet are creating an immensely intricate piece of art at Iowa State University this week. These Tibetan Monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery are creating a sand mandala, a geometric shape that in Buddhist culture is a spiritual object. No two mandalas are alike and each has a specific purpose. When they complete the mandala Thursday morning, it will exist in its completed form for only a couple hours. At 12:45 p.m. Thursday, the sand artwork will be released into College Creek. The four-day mandala project at Iowa State is a Green Tara Mandala, which symbolizes wisdom. [
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