Here is a transcript of the interview the [Chico, California] Enterprise-Record did with Losang Samten, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, on Feb. 15.
E-R: How old are you?
S: 57.
E-R: What is a mandala?
S: It is a representation. It is the architecture of a palace which represents many things. A divine palace. From the Buddhist point of view (it shows) the different stages to the path of enlightenment. It is the universe, humanity, all of one individual’s positive qualities and all the things we need to purify from ourselves. There are so many thusands of mandala with different themes.
E-R: How long have you been making mandalas.
S: Over 30 years.
(The reporter conducting the interview and Samten are sitting at a small round table. At this point, a photographer taking pictures of Samten grabs the two back legs of the reporter’s chair and pulls them quickly to the right, moving him so that he has a better view for his camera. Samten laughs heartily and says, “That is a mandala.” He explains that a mandala (perhaps a certain kind of mandala) means that “anything can be OK.”
E-R: How do you say “mandala”? Is the accent on the first “a” or on the second?
S: It doesn’t matter how you say it.
E-R: How did you learn to make sand mandalas?
S: I went to a monastery. Before 1959, in Tibet, there were so many monasteries and nunneries. I had to leave in 1959, the year the Chinese took…