The Kalachakra empowerment took place in June. In addition to the several hundred full-time attendees of the ceremony, several busloads organized by the Bhutanese, Sherpa and Tibetan communities made the four-hour drive from New York City each day during the main empowerment weekend. A tent was pitched by the parking lot to accommodate meals for everyone who joined the program.
Sand Mandala was poured by monks from His Holiness Penor Rinpoche’s household (Zimkhang), lead by Lama Rapjee Wangchuk, who has been trained at Palyul Monastery, in Kham in Tibet in Sand Mandala techniques. Scraping long, thin metal funnels, tendrils of colored grains of sand were painstakingly laid on a 5’ x 5’ wooden board, following a pattern dictated by the scriptures (pecha) describing its appearance. During the Kalachakra retreat, Khenpo Tenzin Norgey explained the Mandala in great detail, utilizing diagrams on his laptop displayed on a widescreen monitor. At the conclusion of the empowerments on Sunday, July 1, Khenpo Tenzin Norgey conducted the dissolution ceremony.
Ceremonial daggers, called Phurbas, thrust into triangular clay bases were placed around the Mandala. The monks gathered with him around the perimeter, and gently sweeping with white-bristled brushes, they swept the beautiful and complex design into a vase, symbolizing the impermanence of all phenomena. As the setting sun turned the sky to rosy golden hues, the monks and practitioners formed a long procession. Lifting banners and parasols high, accompanied by a traditional Tibetan horn (Gyaling), they walked down the long dirt temple driveway, took a right down Hollow Road and a left onto the smaller side road that leads past lush and leafy trees to a small bridge spanning the creek. Once they reached the creek’s banks, they poured the rainbow-colored sand into the rain-swollen waters, letting the colored swirls of sand drift away and dissolve in the gently lapping current.
The procession made its way back to the temple as one last busload full of Tibetans, Sherpa and Bhutanese, on its way back to New York City, slowly rolled by, all of its inhabitants waving goodbye with wide grins, joyful from the great blessings they’d received, bursting into happy songs. Even the driver himself, a Palestinian immigrant named Mohammed, could not help but feel deeply touched by the energy of love and joy. As his bus rolled slowly down Hollow Road, he sounded the vehicle’s deep and friendly horn in a final farewell.