Workshops

Our monks will facilitate hands-on workshops for all ages. Work one on one with monks to learn how to create art in the rare Buddhist tradition.  The following are the workshops currently planned:

• BUTTER SCULPTURE
• COLORING TIBETAN DESIGN
• SAND PAINTING
• MANI STONE

Butter Sculpture:  two-hour workshop

Butter sculpture is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist art. Although it is not as well known as another Tibetan ritual art, the sand mandala it is still an important aspect of Tibetan Buddhism in its own right. Butter sculptures symbolize impermanence, (a main tenet of Buddhism,) along with more ritualistic components, and are usually destroyed in anywhere from a day to a few years. They are traditionally made with yak butter, but in exiled Tibetan communities, as the weather is usually warmer, it is made with ghee, fat, and wax. Butter sculptures are displayed on altars and shrines in monasteries or family homes. They are traditionally made every Losar, the Tibetan New Year, and for the Butter Sculpture Festival, part of the Great Prayer Festival, or "Monlam Chenmo" that is held soon after Losar. In it, monks made huge, story high butter sculptures displayed outside the Jokhang in Lhasa, the holiest temple in Tibetan Buddhism.

Butter sculptures are displayed in many different ways; typically, they are made on a paddle, as free standing sculptures, or a decoration on tsampa cones called tormas.  They are usually made in the form of flowers, "metog," or traditional symbols such as the 8 auspicious signs.

 For children:  a simple version of the Losar traditional butter sculptures on wooden plaques. Designs for adults--adapted for various levels of ability--include

• flowers (several styles)
• conch
• jewels
• animals

A longer workshop with a higher level of complexity will also include the Four Friends and the Eight Auspicious Symbols (Tashi Dargye).

The Four Friends

Materials Required (unless indicated, participants bring their own materials)
roll of waste paper
scotch tape
form cardboard or thin plywood for the cutouts
patterns for cutouts (supplied by tour)
play doh (mixed colors)
carving tools (supplied by tour)

Coloring Tibetan Designs:  one-hour workshop

This workshop is designed with small children in mind.  The monks will provide prepared drawings of Tibetan designs, such as the Eight Auspicious Symbols, snow lions and yaks.  All that is required is that the children bring their own crayons.

 

Dorje	Snow Lion

         

Sand Painting:  two-hour workshop

This is a two-hour workshop and includes teaching how to create the following designs using the same techniques as monks use in creating a Sacred Sand Mandala

• Eight Auspicious Symbols (Tashi Dargye)
• yak
• windhorses
• snow lions
• stylized fire patterns

Sand painting is an ancient Tibetan art form. The Sacred Sand Mandala is carefully constructed from dyed sand particles to represent the particular esoteric, textual traditions of Buddhism. It is a transient art form, thought to have originated in India and been transferred in the middle ages to Tibet. The sand mandala is constructed as vehicle to generate compassion, realize the impermanence of reality, and a social/cosmic healing of the environment.

Millions of grains of colored sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of several days, forming an intricate diagram of the enlightened mind and the ideal world. The most common substance used in the creation of dul-tson-kyil-khor is colored sand, which is ground from stone.  Other popular substances are powdered flowers, herbs or grains.  In ancient times, powdered precious and semi-precious gems were also used.  Thus, lapis lazuli would be used for the blues, rubies for the reds, and so forth.  When finished, to symbolize the impermanence of all that exists, the colored sands are swept up and poured into a nearby river or stream where the waters carry the healing energies throughout the world. 

World Peace Sand Painting

All of the designs will be be pre-drawn so visitors can draw the sand following the lines.

Materials Required (participants will bring their own supplies)
small pillows
two thin steel tubes (about 1-foot long and a half inch in diameter)
thin plywood "slates"
colored sand (available in crafts stores)

Mani Stones:  two-hour workshop

The prayer stones (called “mani stones”) of Drepung Gomang Monastery are painted with the prayer “Om mani padme hum," a prayer asking for the qualities of wisdom, compassion, and a good heart.   The monks will teach you how to create images on flat stones and decorate them with sacred mantras.