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Monks share ephemeral lesson Sand art mandala sent down the Rogue By Bill Varble Rain fell from a heavy sky Friday afternoon as a crewcut man in maroon and yellow robes dumped sand from a milk carton into the rushing Rogue River near Medford. Ngawang Pendu and seven of his fellow Buddhist monks spent the week using millions of grains of the fine, colored sand to create a big sand-painting mandala at Southern Oregon University. Casting the sand into the river reminds the monks of the transience of all life, he said. In theory, the sand can now go down the river to the sea and out to the wider world, like a prayer. About 100 people gathered Friday to watch visiting lamas, or monks, from the Drepung Loseling Monastery in India. Survivors of the monks' order wound up in India when they fled the Chinese, who invaded Tibet in 1959. This week in Ashland the monks presented a variety of events highlighting their ancient culture. A program of sacred music and dance called "The Mystical Arts of Tibet" was on Friday and tonight at Southern Oregon University (no tickets remained). There were lectures on Tibetan culture and an appearance on a radio talk show. Ngawang Tashi, another monk, said the visit had two purposes: to raise awareness of the plight of Tibetans and their culture, and to promote world healing. Some 5,000 people saw the sand painting this week, said Tom Olbrich of SOU's program board, which organized the events. An additional 1,000 people attended lectures connected with the visit. "I think it's wonderful," Deborah Heatherstone of Ashland said as the rain fell. "They kept reminding people all week to have love and compassion and pray for world peace." The eye-catching mandala grew day by day as monks poured grains of sand into a multicolored circular design that was both a diagram of the universe and a map for meditation. Called "The Buddha of Long Life," the mandala sat on a wooden table in SOU's Stevenson Union during recent days. When a similar painting was destroyed by vandals several years ago in San Francisco, the monks seemed unaffected. But this one was finished, and the monks swept it up, and a caravan of cars followed monks and sand and all to TouVelle State Park. Swollen by days of rain, the Rogue was a torrent of coffee-with-cream-colored froth. Bells, cymbals and horns mixed with the unearthly sound of the monks' overtone chanting under the new bridge at TouVelle Park. Takelma elder Agnes Baker Pilgrim said a few words that were carried off in the white noise of the water. In the crowd, eyes were closed, hands folded. Then the sand was in the river and people were bowing and smiling and the crowd started to break up and drift away. Ngawang Pendu said such ceremonies help the monks to reduce attachments and desires. Then the monks piled into a van and there was nothing to do but head from the shelter of the bridge into the pouring rain and the greasy roads of an Oregon January. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA