Tibetan Buddhist monks concluded their visit to the University on Sunday after spending five days building an intricate sand mandala. The creation of the mandala, above, requires the use of a metal funnel called a “chak-pur ” that aids the monks in placing the millions of grains of sand.
The monks are affiliated with the Drepung Loseling Monastery, which was built in Lhasa, Tibet, in 1416 but is now empty due to the Chinese takeover of that country in 1959. Today, the headquarters of the monastery is in exile in the state of Karnataka, India. Their visit to campus aimed to raise awareness of the Tibetan cause as well as money for exiled communities of Tibet.

During their stay, the monks also performed at the Willamette Valley Folk Festival on Saturday. In one particularly intense piece, right, called “Tak-tsey Tong-ya,” the monks engaged each other in order to explore the implications of spiritual experience while simultaneously attaining further levels of that experience.