ST. PETERSBURG — More than 800 people were drawn to the "dismantling" ceremony Saturday to see the vividly detailed sand mandala that renowned scholar and former Buddhist monk Losang Samten spent two weeks meticulously building in the lobby of the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg.
A symbol of the Buddhist belief that life is beautiful and transitory, onlookers lined the seawall along Bay Shore Drive NE in a line almost three blocks long to watch the sand scattered to the wind and into the waters of Tampa Bay.
Throwing the blessing out into the world is "worth it," Samten, 63, assured them.
"Much more worth it than keeping this piece in the museum."
In 1988, Samten was sent to the United States by the Dalai Lama to demonstrate the meditative art of sand painting. It was the first time a Tibetan mandala was shown in the West. Since then, he has created mandalas at museums and universities such as Harvard and advised Martin Scorsese for his film about the Dalai Lama, Kundun.
Hundreds of people from all walks of life have come by the museum in the past two weeks to watch and, at some points, to take part.
"A lot of people have commented on the change in energy," said museum store clerk Cat Purcell, 28, of Tampa. "When you walk in, it just feels very peaceful."
One woman was wearing a bedazzled T-shirt that read "Keep Drinking. They Get Better Looking," during the blessing of the sand on Jan. 4, when visitors were invited to use Samten's chakpur, a fluted, cone-shaped tool, to pour sand on the platform.
"People have been talking about how they feel really blessed to have him here," Purcell said as the museum store did a brisk business Saturday selling posters, postcards and magnets of the Medicine Buddha Mandala, "like it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing."
The layers of the mandala's sand have a substrata of meaning in their symbols, colors and especially the process. The Buddhists believe the rhythmic repetition has a meditative, calming effect and produces a sense of peace just by gazing at it.
Last weekend, Ingrid Clark, 55, of St. Petersburg couldn't stop herself from closing her eyes and meditating as the chucka-chucka-chucka sound of Samten's chakpur overwhelmed her.
"I felt so calm and peaceful," she said. "I was absorbing the healing, and I'm not even Buddhist."
Sand from Siesta Key was turned into a lace-like design, and soil from Straub Park next to the museum appeared in a series of lotus petals. In between were dancing goddesses with balls of light in their outstretched hands that you had to squint see.
And on Saturday it was all swept away.
"This hurts," whispered Susan Osher, 73, as children were invited to take a brush to sweep through the jewel-toned scene.
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Explore all your options"I'm crying because it so peaceful. Why can't the world be more like that?" Osher said. "But still it hurts to watch it go. It bothers me."
The ceremony inside the museum started with prayers and chanting. A violinist played Amazing Grace and the audience sang along. Then drums beat the rhythms of chants as Samten cut long lines through the mandala with a ritual implement. The sand was then brushed toward the center of the platform, now looking more like a pile of dirt.
On Saturday, burly 6-foot, 4-inch firefighter Patrick Bendure, 42, said he found the ceremony beautiful. When asked if he would be sad to see it go, he replied: "Not at all."
"That's the beauty in the meaning of it, of the impermanence of life," said Bendure, a captain with Hillsborough County Fire Rescue. He sees more suffering than most in his job, and Samten, whose family fled Tibet when he was a child, did as well.
"But that's the underlying beauty even in suffering," Bendure said. "If we hadn't had this influx of monks from Tibet, it's possible we wouldn't have had their influence on the West, and I wouldn't be here today to see this."
Sharon Kennedy Wynne can be reached at swynne@tampabay.com. Follow @SharonKWn on Twitter.