Westover School in Middlebury Hosts Tibetan Monks

A group of Buddhist Tibetan monks visited Westover School on Nov. 10 in Middlebury to construct a Mandala and to share their art, culture, spiritual and philosophical beliefs with the students, faculty and staff, and other members of the Westover community.

During a closing ceremony on Nov. 14, the intricate and beautiful circle of sand was swept into a grayish pile –signifying the impermanence of life – swept into a vessel and poured into the waters of the Westover Pond.

The eight monks who were in the five-day residency at Westover are from the Drepung Gomang Institute in Mundgod, India. Their visit was the fourth time a group of monks from the monastery have been invited to Westover. Their previous visits were in 2001, 2009, and 2011. The monks’ visits to Westover have been underwritten by Westover’s Walker Fund, which provides funding for special cultural and artistic programs for the School community.

The mandala was created in support of World Peace.

In addition to the creation of the mandala, the monks began and ended their daily work on the sand painting with chants. At the beginning of the first day of their visit, a special service was held in Westover’s chapel, where the monks chanted a series of prayers, talked about the purpose of their tour, and answered questions about Buddhism, their Tibetan homeland, their monastery, and their year-long tour to schools and universities throughout the Eastern United States.

The monks participated in debates concerning matters of faith and discussed the philosophy of nonviolence.

Visitors who came to view the creation of the mandala included families of Westover students and other guests from the community, as well as students from Woodhall School in Bethlehem and several classes from Chase Collegiate School in Waterbury.

Groups of monks from the Drepung Monastery periodically tour the United States and other countries around the world. The original monastery was founded in 1416 near Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. In 1959, after a failed uprising by Tibetans against the repressive measures of the governing forces of the People’s Republic of China, the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans – including a small group of monks from the Drepung Monastery – fled Tibet to live in political exile in India. In 1969 the monks settled in Mundgod, in southern India, where they rebuilt their monastery. Today approximately 2,000 monks live on the 42-acre site. The monks hope to someday return to their homeland in Tibet.

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