SACRED MUSIC, SACRED DANCE FOR WORLD HEALING

Presented by Richard Gere Productions & Drepung Loseling Institute

Friday, March 29^th

7:30 p.m.

Lensic Performing Arts Center

211 W. San Francisco Street, Santa Fe

Tickets range from $20-30 at the Lensic box office

Eight Tibetan monks will meet with New Mexico’s Governor Gary Johnson and create a sand mandala in the Capitol Rotunda. Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place in this spiritual art form in order to purify and heal the environment and its inhabitants.

Commencing with an opening ceremony at 11:30 am, Monday, March 25 and closing with the dismantling of the mandala at 11:30 am, Monday, April 1. Free to the public.

Monday, March 25 through Thursday, March 28. Evening Prayers & Chants with the Monks. Upaya Foundation Temple, 1402 Cerro Gordo, Santa Fe. Free to the public.

Saturday, March 30. The Venerable Rizong Rinpoche will present a one-day retreat at the Church of Religious Science, 505 Camino De Los Marquez. 10:00 am - 4:00 pm with lunch break.

Donation $75.00. For further information and registration, call Marcia Keegan at 505-989-9590.

Saturday, March 30. Enjoy a traditional Tibetan dinner with the Venerable Rizong Rinpoche and the monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery. Cloud Cliff Bakery, 1805 Second Street, Santa Fe. Donation $75.00. Tickets available at Cloud Cliff Bakery.

As with Buddhist tradition as a whole, sand painting has its roots in the tantric legacy of Buddhist India, extending back more than 20,000 years to the time preceding the migration of native North Americans from Central Asia. Thus we see similarities between it and the sand painting traditions of the natives of the southwest, such as the Hopi and the Navajo.

The Drepung Monastery was perhaps the largest spiritual institution ever created in the history of human civilization. It was certainly Tibet’s largest monastery. Founded near Lhasa in 1416 by Jamyang Choje, one of Lama Tsong Khapa’s five principal disciples, it often housed up to ten and twelve thousand monks. For more than half a millennium people came from all parts of Central Asia in search of the great learning and profound spirituality for which Drepung was renowned. Today they are refugees with a monastery in exile in southern India.

For additional information about any or all of these events, please call Marcia Keegan at 505-989-9590.