Art Illuminates Spiritual Side of Life on World’s Rooftop

In Tibetan Buddhism, mandalas--circular depictions of the cosmos and the palaces of particular deities--are created during ritual acts of initiation. For the current show at the Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art, a mandala 6 feet in diameter has been made of colored sand by visiting Tibetan monks, and its function, too, is linked to the process of initiation.

The mandala here launches viewers on an exploratory journey through the rich symbolism, extraordinary forms and spiritual soundness of Tibetan Buddhist culture. Both the mandala and the journey as a whole--through the exhibition’s representations of monastic, religious and nomadic spheres of Tibetan life--are deeply illuminating.

“Tibet: Art of the People From the Rooftop of the World” was organized by the Mingei’s registrar, Cornelia Feye, who last worked in the education department of the Jacques Marchais Center of Tibetan Art in New York. The show, which includes ritual sculpture and objects as well as garments and other everyday tools and accessories, celebrates both the Dalai Lama’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the Tibetan spiritual leader’s declaration of 1991 as the Year of Tibet.

“Images, as objects of contemplation to purify the body, mind and senses, have to be created in wrathful as well as peaceful aspects, and sometimes with multiple heads and hands, to suit the physical, mental and sensual aptitudes of individuals striving for the final goal,” the Dalai Lama has written. True to his statement, the Mingei show ranges in mood from a statue of a frenzied, multiarmed deity fending off the god of death, to the profoundly calming mandala itself.

Fashioned of ground stone mixed with pigment and located in a case in the center of the show, the mandala describes in schematic, symbolic form the “sacred mansion” of the Kalachakra deity. The four quadrants of the palace and the outermost, encircling rings--representing the cosmic elements of earth, wind, fire, water, space and consciousness--can be read like a text; they form an intricate, finely detailed expression of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. The average American’s visual and spiritual vocabulary doesn’t allow a close reading of the mandala’s symbolism, but even on the surface, the mandala exerts a powerful spiritual presence.

Its circular shape suggests the cyclical notions of reincarnation and karma that are fundamental to Buddhism. And the impermanence of the mandala--at the end of the show the sand from which it was formed will be ritualistically swept up and dispersed in the ocean--also manifests an idea central to Buddhist thought. The impermanence of the material world and particularly the human body is suggested in several other ritual objects in the show as well, including an apron made of carved beads of human bone and metal-lined cups made of human skulls.

Buddhism entered Tibet from India in the 7th Century, and traditionally, one of every four Tibetan men would lead a monastic life. Most of Tibet’s monasteries have been destroyed, however, since the Chinese occupied the remote Himalayan country in 1951. The Dalai Lama and many of his followers sought refuge in India in the late 1950s, where they strive for inner peace, compassion and a pure mind within the irrational world that sent them into exile. Tara, their goddess of compassion, appears frequently here, her broad, calming features painted on paper masks, and painted 500 times on a single cloth painting.

The objects in this show date as far back as the 17th Century, but they are less artifacts than exquisitely beautiful, living tools used on the Tibetan Buddhists’ own journey toward enlightenment. Conch shells sheathed in embossed metal, trumpets in the shape of wolves, and women’s headdresses studded with coral and turquoise all bring the Tibetan way of life closer to our own, and ease us one step further toward our enlightenment about the vast and rich world around us.

Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art, 4405 La Jolla Village Drive (University Towne Centre), open Tuesday through Saturday 11-5, Sunday 2-5, through June 2.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a “Multicultural Festival Weekend” celebrating the Year of Tibet will take place Saturday and Sunday, May 18 and 19. The program includes films on Tibetan subjects and a performance by the Tibetan Dance and Opera Company. For information, call the museum at 453-5300.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

They are books, but they are also sculpture. The productions of Brighton Press are as much for the eye and the hand as for the mind--they are literature for all of the senses. Recent projects by the press, founded in 1977, combine “Two Voices,” those of poets and printmakers, and are in a rare display in the front gallery of the press at 320 G St. “Poem Made of Water” joins a poem by Nancy Willard with etchings by local artist Michele Burgess in a small book of poignancy and power. Others books feature images by DeLoss McGraw and Manuel Neri and words by Janet Lewis and Mary Julia. The show, on view for an indefinite period of time, can be seen by appointment (234-1179).