B.U. Bridge

Campus unity goal in September 11 ceremonies

By Hope Green

On Wednesday morning, exactly a year after September 11, 2001, the chiming of a bell on Marsh Plaza will signal the start of campus activities to commemorate the anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

At a morning ceremony, volunteers will distribute peace buttons. University chaplains will hold prayer services during the day, and there will be an evening candlelight vigil at Marsh Plaza. Members of the BU community can also sign a new section of BU's We Remember message board and meditate on visions of peace at a Buddhist sand mandala ritual.

"The chaplains wanted these vents to say, 'We've made it through the year, so there's some hope we can keep moving forward,'" says Hope Luckie, acting dean of Marsh Chapel. "So it will be less about reflecting on our grief, and more about how we can continue."

Also in conjunction with the September 11 anniversary, the Office of the University Chaplain, the School of Theology, and Marsh Chapel have organized a weeklong series of educational and spiritual events focusing on Tibetan Buddhism.

The mandala, a tradition that began in India about 1,400 years ago, is a work of art with brightly hued sands layered onto a flat surface in intricate patterns. Two Tibetan Buddhist monks will construct a mandala under a tent onMarsh Plaza and lead prayer rituals there twice daily for eight days.

On September 19, the monks will preside over a ritual emptying of the mandala into the Charles River, a ceremony that signifies impermanence. Related events during the week include a lecture on mandalas by David Eckel, a CAS associate professor of religion and winner of a 1998 Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching, and a lecture and open dialogue with Geshe Gendun Gyatso, a Buddhist monk and former affiliate chaplain at BU, entitled Healing and Peace. There will also be a screening of Kundun, Martin Scorsese's film about the exile of the Dalai Lama from Tibet.

Mandalas represent various deities, and the mandala to be built here will depict the sangye menlha, or medicine Buddha, a personification of Buddhist healing power.

The prayers and ceremonies follow a year in which students, faculty, and staff led their own post-September 11 initiatives. The student government and the Dean of Students Office, for instance, issued the BUnited buttons, seen pinned to backpacks through the spring semester, and arranged holiday bus service for students nervous about air travel.

Many observed a heightened solidarity on campus. "What I noticed after September 11 is a very strong sense of community," says Carolyn Norris, director of student activities. "It just seemed people were more aware of saying good morning to each other and greeting people as they walked by."

The atmosphere of unity crossed cultural barriers, with the majority of students from Islamic and Arab-speaking countries attending BU safe from harassment. But with tightened government security causing delays in visa clearance, several of these students cannot return for the fall semester, and some admitted freshmen will not matriculate as soon as they had planned.

It is not yet clear how many of the approximately 4,450 foreign students enrolled at BU are in this predicament, although at least 10 such students have contacted administrators to inquire about deferring their enrollment. These students are not only from the Middle East but also the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, and China.

"It has been a relatively small number," says Greg Leonard, director of the Office of International Students and Scholars, "but it's not something that normally happens this time of year."

On the other hand, BU has seen no decline in applications from any country. The same is true at other schools Leonard has contacted. "I think the vast majority of parents understand that it's just as safe to send their kids to the United States today as it was a year ago," he says.

Thirty-six international students, primarily from the Middle East, went home after the terrorist attacks, citing September 11 as the reason. By January, all but four of these students had returned to the University.

http://www.bu.edu/bridge/archive/2002/09-06/unity.htm

Monks Create Universe For World Peace

By Brian Dolan

Two Tibetan monks, Geshe Gendun Gyatso and Lama Dundop, began a weeklong ritual of creating a sand mandala in mid-September within the shelter of a tent on Marsh Plaza.

"Geshe and Lama Dundop are both Tibetan monks in exile living in India," explained Shelli Jankowski-Smith, director of the office of university chaplain. Lama Dunlop is an expert in creating the sand mandala, Geshe Gundun Gyatso stated before the ceremony began. "Geshe was an affiliated chaplain at Boston University two years ago," and he offered the ritual as a gift to the community, Jankowski-Smith said.

He chose to perform this ritual "right after September 11th because of the universal need for healing and peace," Jankowski- Smith said. "The creation of the sand mandala is representative of the creation of the universe," she continued.

The mandala, or "sacred circle," is also a palace for a deity, explained M. David Eckel, Associate Professor of Religion at Boston University, during his lecture at the GSU on Sept. 16. "If you can build his palace you can invite him to enter it and then you can pray to him," Eckel continued. The sand mandala Gyatso and Dundop created is a palace for Bhaisajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha.

Eckel went on to state that "life is always filled with the quality of impermanence, and we need to learn to let it go in order to be happy-not to suffer as we see things melting away." We need to realize that this is what life is really like, he said.

Each day at 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. the monks performed the Medicine Buddha sadhana prayer ritual, which requires the monks to sit and chant in Tibetan for half an hour.

"Many people" visited the monks during the prayer ritual and the creation process. "Too many headaches," Geshe Gyatso added with a laugh. "Everybody needs healing; everyone should come together to pray, visualize, and feel the healing energy," he said.

The monks invited students into their tent and behind the ropes when few onlookers were present. Geshe Gyatso gave a blue prayer bracelet, which aided in the healing process, to those students who sat behind the scenes.

"I think it is important for students to come and inquire about this project, because it is important to understand how other cultures deal with grief," stated Daniel DeBonis, a Boston University sophomore. Students who did not take Daniel’s advice were left in the dark.

"I do not even know what [the sand mandala] is, but it is definitely pretty," opined Steve Shell, a sophomore at Boston University. Lama Dundop used metal tools called "tson phuk" in Tibetan, or "colored hollows," to place the grains of sand, Geshe Gyatso said. The monk first filled one hollow tool with the desired color of sand. He then held the tools perpendicular to each other and rubbed them together, which helped to steady his hand while he poured the sand onto the design, Geshe Gyatso explained.

The ritual creation finished Sept. 18. Geshe Gyatso and Lama Dundop invested over 50 hours of labor into the project. On Sept. 19 the monks performed the "ritual emptying of [the] sand mandala into [the] Charles River to purify the environment ... and to signify impermanence," literature for the event reported.

The Office of the University Chaplain, the School of Theology, and Marsh Chapel at Boston University co-sponsored the event.

http://www.thestudentunderground.org/article.php3?Issue=39&ArticleID=219