Galloway, N.J. — As an associate professor of Asian Philosophy, Jongbok Yi lectures his Stockton University students about a completely different way of life than what most of them are used to.

Now, Yi hopes to show them firsthand by bringing a group of Tibetan monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery to campus to build a sand mandala and meet with students. The week-long program, titled “Healing Through Mandala,” began with an opening ceremony on Monday, April 7 in the Campus Center’s Great Hall.

“This is important because students can see the presence of a very different culture here and then hopefully can appreciate the beauty of different cultures,” Yi said. “Sociologist Max Weber said that if you only know one thing, you don’t know anything. By seeing the difference, you can clearly see who you are and what culture you have.”

After a series of chants and prayers, six monks began to design the pattern for the mandala that they will construct during the week. Red, green, yellow, blue and orange sand will fill out the mandala’s pattern. According to Tibetan Buddhist Tradition, mandala symbolizes the Buddhist cosmos.

“If you think about how they build this mandala, they build it from individual grains of sand. So, if you can think of each grain of sand as us — Stockton students, faculty and staff — then this is Stockton,” Yi said. “I think this will show the importance of harmony, love and compassion to the entire Stockton community.”

The monks’ work will continue until a closing ceremony at 2:30 p.m. Friday, April 11 in the Campus Center where they will destroy the sand mandala to symbolize the transitory nature of all phenomena.

Yi said he first arranged for the monks to come to campus in 2016. His plan was to bring them back every three years so each class that attends Stockton can see them once. The monks returned to campus in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic prevented them from coming back sooner, Yi said.

“This is also a special event for the monks, since they don’t build the sand mandalas in their monastery often,” he said.

This week, Stockton will host several other events with the monks that are open to the public, unless noted:

• Tuesday, April 8 at 2:30 p.m. in the Campus Center: The monks will help participants to draw the mantra of compassion on pebbles.
• Wednesday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Campus Center Event Room: The monks will perform a Tibetan traditional dance during the Phoenix Night Market hosted by Stockton’s Asian Student Alliance.
• Thursday, April 10 at 8:30 a.m. in the Campus Center Theatre: The monks will perform a tea offering ritual, the history of tea in Tibet, and a Tibetan tea tasting. At 5 p.m. reserved students and local community members will participate in a Tibetan cooking class at the Townsend Residential Life Center

-- Story by Mark Melhorn, photos by Lizzie Nealis