Museum Readies for Dalai Lama Visit

Nearly all 400 of the Pacific Asia Museum’s volunteers worked at a frenzied pace Thursday, preparing for the 10-day Pasadena visit of his Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader.

Staff and volunteers laid carpet in the auditorium and hung flags and tapestries throughout the museum, said Paul Little, director of communications for the museum.

“I believe we are even getting a large Thanka painting,” a religious painting depicting reincarnations and deities, he said.

The museum, which showcases Asian and Pacific cultures, will host the opening ceremonies Sunday, two days before the Dalai Lama is scheduled to conduct a three-day teaching engagement at the Pasadena Civic Center, Little said.

At the opening ceremony and during the exiled Tibetan’s stay in Southern California, five Buddhists monks will create a 9-foot-by-9-foot three-dimensional sand painting of a mandala, a circular design considered a symbolic diagram of the universe.

Seating is limited to 50 people for the event but the museum is opening its doors on Monday and extending its hours to 10 p.m. on Tuesday through Thursday, allowing believers and interested observers to watch the mandala’s creation, Little said.

At a closing ceremony on Aug. 8, which is also limited to 50 spectators, the monks will sweep the sand from the completed mandala into ceremonial urns. They will carry the urns to a stream near the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and pour out the sand.

Southern California is the last stop on the Dalai Lama’s four-state U.S. tour, during which he not only has spoken before Buddhists but has met with Christian and Jewish leaders. On Aug. 2, before leaving Los Angeles, the Nobel Peace Prize winner is expected to make an appearance at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, his representatives said.

For information about the museum’s events, call (818) 449-2742. For tickets to the Dalai Lama’s three-day teachings, call (818) 445-2508.