The Dalai Lama is in town to dedicate a new monastery here in Ithaca, and spent most of the day on the Cornell campus. He stopped by the Johnson Art Museum to bless both a sand and a string mandala that monks from India have been working on since September 11. It’s been an experience to see them the past few weeks strolling across campus in their robes in the warm fall weather on their way to Collegetown for their lunch break.
The Ithaca Journal has some great photo essays of the monks at work constructing the string mandala and sand mandala.
The Cornell Chronicle also has great coverage of the visit, and the web folks have streaming video of the Dalai Lama’s address to a full house at Barton Hall. It’s worth a peak just for the invocation chant by the monks. I only caught bits and pieces this afternoon. But from what I could hear, the Dalai Lama is entertaining (jovial is the word that came to mind) as well as enlightening.
I have read a few of the Dalai Lama’s books and he seems an enlightened individual! I would love to hear him speak. I envy you your proximity.
He certainly does look jovial. I can’t stop looking at that picture of the monk kneeling in front of the landscape painting, though. My mind whispers that it’s incongruous somehow, but my eye and heart do not agree… they think he looks perfectly at home there.