Upsetting, difficult to parse,

The Venerable Tenzin Yignyen is constructing a Chenrezig sand mandala in the campus art gallery. The story is that the mandala is a manifestation of the compassion of the Buddha, and it is home to many gods, who are also manifestations of the compassion of the Buddha. The construction of the mandala is supposed to be a chance to meditate and cultivate your own spirit of compassion. I went down, because I wanted a chance to breathe deeply before going into the office to prepare for classes tomorrow.

The world is complicated and full of chance meetings, and scheduling has brought a rather odd collection of exhibits to the tiny, two-room gallery our campus houses. The bulk of the wall space is taken up by the work of a photojournalist named Tyler Hicks who has been working in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most prominent photograph is of a Taliban soldier found by a group of northern alliance fighters wounded in a ditch, pretending to be dead. The Alliance soldiers kicked him around, and he lost his pants. The order then came in to execute him. The photo shows three men with Kalashnikovs filling the wounded man with lead. For some reason, the photo has been printed on cloth and displayed like a scroll painting.

It would be easy enough to regard the photos as a chance to cultivate compassion, but there is more noise in the room. At the far end are huge blow-ups of cartoons by the Get Your War On guy. Clip art with angry obscenities. My current ethics textbook says that many who sheltered Jews during the holocaust were more motivated by anger at the Nazis than compassion for their victims. I do not know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. In the hall outside of the gallery are drawings of women’s fashion made with pink Sharpies in an exhibit called “permanent/temporary.”

The gallery is full of people I know who want to talk to me. I am given the chance to contribute to the mandala. It looks like a birthday cake, and I am given a tool that looks like the tubes used to spread frosting. My lines of sand are weak and tentative. I find the whole thing upsetting, and difficult to parse. I have to leave. It turns out I was there for two hours.