"On July 6, we started work at the Museum of Natural History. We began to learn the Kalachakra Tantra and the museum staff became part of our sand mandala family in this unique, historic event. Lobsang Samten was then joined by three other Namgyal monks: Lobsang Gyaltsen, Pema Lobsang Chogyen, and Jamphal Dhundup.

"On the day the sand mandala opened at the museum, New York Times reporter Dennis Hevesi wrote, 'Amid the clamor and clatter of the city, a pinpoint of pure calm — a "gateway to bliss" — is being created.' Other writers and photographers from newspapers, magazines, television, and radio soon followed.

"During our six weeks at the museum, at any time one might find up to 100 people totally involved in the exhibit. People contemplated the monks at work with great respect, as if witnessing a ceremony in a church or temple. Each morning at 10 A.M. as many as fifty people might be waiting to join the monks for their morning prayers, which lasted up to forty-five minutes. Then the special Plexiglas protective cover was lifted so that the monks could begin their work.

"More than 50,000 people came to see the exhibition. What they saw in the room was a monk sitting on the waist-high mandala base, applying sand through an elongated funnel to a mandala seven feet in diameter. Viewers walked in a circle around the thekpu, which was surrounded by stanchions because the mandala's fragility made it inadvisable for viewers to get too close. What they heard was the sustained rasping of the metal funnel used to apply the tiny stream of colored sand particles.

"Painting the Kalachakra Sand Mandala in its ritual context traditionally takes six days, employing as many as sixteen monks. At the museum it was slowed down so that the visitors could experience the entire process in detail over a period of six weeks. Four large TV monitors placed throughout the gallery allowed the visitors to see details of the mandala emerge as they were painted. Accustomed to television, visitors found the enlarged video view provided by the overhead robotic camera both comfortingly familiar and educational. This bird's-eye view magnified minuscule details 400 per cent, prompting one woman to say it was 'just like being in the monks' shoes.'

"The exhibition also included a stationary video installation with a twenty-minute film of the Kalachakra Initiation bestowed by the Dalai Lama at Bodhgaya, India, which served to illustrate the sacred context of the mandala.

"One of the questions asked most frequently was, 'How do the monks feel about doing this sacred work in the museum?' The monks always responded positively: 'When we paint a mandala in the monastery, it is usually seen only by our fellow monks. But here in the museum, thousands of people are able to see it. Here we are showing the culture of Tibet, and the mandala itself will benefit many people.'

"The monks learned to describe their work to people who had no knowledge of the culture and its traditions. They were soon able to reduce their detailed explanations of the teachings to succinct phrases, such as one monk's assertion that work on the mandala offered him 'peace of mind.' Most of New York's television news teams covered the story, interviewing both the monks and the public.

"Art writers came from various publications. Kay Larson, in her New York magazine column, said, 'A sand mandala is an extraordinary thing, collaborative, ephemeral, unsigned, ahistorical — contrary in every way to "art" as we mean it in the world.' This reflected the New York public's fascination with a work of art which, after six weeks of meticulous craftsmanship, would be swept up and offered to the natural spirits of the Hudson River.

"We discussed with the museum staff the possibility of preserving the mandala so that more people could benefit from seeing and studying it. We experimented with sprays and other protective coating techniques and received a great deal of advice. Finally, we all agreed that the best way to preserve the mandala would be to follow tradition: sweep it up and pour it into the Hudson.

"The dismantling ceremony was witnessed by hundreds of people. The four monks recited prayers requesting the 722 deities which they had invoked during the process of constructing the Kalachakra Mandala to now return to their sacred homes. The monks adroitly removed the colored sands which represented the deities and, within minutes, six weeks of painstaking labor was swept up and put into an urn. The urn was then carried in a ceremonial procession from the museum and the sand was poured into the river.

"The dismantling ceremony was as solemn and as important as the construction of the mandala itself. Prayers were said at the 79th Street Boat Basin as television news crews brought the event into millions of homes."