Last week, eight Tibetan monks were halfway complete with an incredibly intricate sand mandala they were creating in Kansas City's Union Station when a young boy went under the protective rope and messed up the entire design. The monks were gone when it happened but the episode was caught on a security camera. From the Associated Press (photo by monk Dhukar Tsering):
"He did a little tap dance on it, completely destroying it," said Lama Chuck Stanford, of the Rime Buddhist Center in Kansas City.A security tape shows the boy's mother returning to the mandala, grabbing her son by the arm and walking out of camera range…
"No problem," Geshe Lobsang Sumdup, leader of the group from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in southern India, said through a translator. "We didn't get despondent. We have three days more. So we will have to work harder."
Link (Thanks, Jennifer Lum!)
UPDATE: BB reader Duane Morin points to the surveillance video here. And thanks to *all* the readers who commented about Buddhism and impermanence.
