Reflections on Spiritual and Religious Topics

Creating Sand Mandalas

As part of Tom's World Religions courses, students studied Buddhism. At the end of the unit, we created and released a sand mandala in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The mandala process allowed us to reflect on the concepts that most impacted us during the previous two weeks. Students in each class period identified a theme, designed an image to communicate their learning, used sand to create that image, then released their beautiful creation. Sometimes, we distributed the sand on the land of La Salle, particularly beneath two ancient cedar trees. Sometimes, I brought the sand back to Telios Farm where it became part of the soil that grows so much delicious food and other beauty.