Sand mandalas have been in practice for thousands of years, according to Tsepak Rigzin, assistant program director for Drepung Loseling and an adjunct Tibetan language instructor at Emory. Monks use a grated metal rod and a traditional metal funnel called a chak-pur to carefully place millions of grains of colored sand on a table.
There are hundreds of colorful mandala designs to choose from, Rigzin said, but they all share a basic format of geometric shapes and spiritual symbols.
“Normally the monks who do this, they have to go through a lot of training programs and they have to be authenticated by their masters,” Rigzin said. “They have to memorize the oral texts and learn the ritual.”
Following their traditions, the monks wiped away the sand painting within an hour of its completion.
Howard Engel is an accomplished Canadian novelist. One day, he had a stroke and lost the ability to read — that is, his brain could no longer process text as a fixed reference. But Engel found that he could still write, even though, shortly after writing a piece of text, he was unable to read it. So Engel devised a way to use this remaining ability to regain his literacy. Cartoonist and animator Levni Yilmaz produced this video for National Public Radio explaining how Engel was able to do it.
And the Quote of the Day goes to the Vice President for his comments on piracy. Why? Because, according to him, pirating a movie is the same as smashing out a window at Tiffany’s and stealing stuff.
“We used to have a problem in this town saying this,” Biden told reporters at a press conference in Washington D.C. “But piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It’s smash and grab. It ain’t no different than smashing a window at Tiffany’s and grabbing [merchandise].”
