Special to The News
Monday, Feb. 23
What feelings do you associate with Mexico City? Tension? Stress? Frustration?
Try compassion, love and kindness. At least that's what Casa Tibet México hopes to bring to the city this week through an exhibition of ancient Buddhist relics.
Hundreds of tiny pearl-like and crystalline relics are on display until March 1 as part of the "Reliquias del Tibet: Nuevos tesoros espirituales" ("Tibetan Relics: New Spiritual Treasures") exhibition at the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso in the capital's Centro Histórico.
The miniscule spheres were found in the cremated ashes of more than 35 of Tibet's most prominent Buddhist masters, and some are more than 2,500 years old. The relics are believed to embody the knowledge and compassion of the deceased teachers, and they're meant to generate positive energy for those who stand in their presence.
Marco Antonio Karam, founder and director of Casa Tibet México, says his center spent $5,000 to procure the exhibit, hoping it will inspire peace and harmony in people of all faiths. For Mexico's purposes, he said, one of Buddhism's most important values is one of nonviolence and universal responsibility: Everything we do, say and think generates consequences for which we're responsible.
"Violence only generates violence, and love only generates love," he said, standing inside the glass-paneled walls of the exhibition room.
SEEDS OF PEACE
The second-floor exhibition room at the San Ildefonso museum fills with the smell of incense and gentle light from orchid-shaped lamps. Blue and gold tapestries line the walls, depicting shrines to Buddhist saints. Soft harmonies from instruments and chanting voices slip through the speakers.
On a wide table draped with silk cloths, the pebble-size relics sit atop tiny altars under glass cases with portraits of the corresponding masters beside them. Some are opaque, translucent, white or dark; some are piles of tiny grains or large, single stones.
The relics on display include the pearl-like remains of Karmapa Dusum Khyenpa, recognized as the first Dalai Lama, who died in 1193. Close by are the relics of Tsong Khapa, the Tibetan Buddhism reformer who died in 1419 and is referred to as the "Martin Luther King Jr. of Buddhism" by some followers today.
In the center of the table, a large, bronze Buddha statue is surrounded by bouquets of lilies and banana leaves, cut-crystal bowls and baskets of oranges and apples. The figure sits beneath a two-tiered golden canopy, a portrait of the current Dalai Lama secured to its post.
Siliana Bosa, a Buddhist nun of nearly 30 years, holds the relics on her head as she circles the table and puts the treasures delicately into place. Dressed in draping, wine-colored robes, she also wears a surgical mask to avoid contaminating the sacred objects. Each evening, she ceremoniously returns the relics to their boxes and stores them until the next day.
The relics are on loan from the Maitreya Project, an initiative founded by the Santa Cruz, California-based spiritual master Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Since 2001, the project has exhibited its 1,000 pebble-sized relics from well-known masters including Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, his closest disciples and other masters from Chinese, Indian, Korean and Tibetan traditions.
Bosa is one of three custodians responsible for the relics on this tour; all three are students under Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Bosa, a native of Italy, said the relics are like mirrors reflecting love and kindness into the hearts of those who pass through. Many people weep, laugh or simply relax in the presence of the treasures.
"That is the seed for peace in the world," she said of the relics. "I've heard that Mexico is really, really violent and with a lot of crime. In Mexico, like everywhere else in the world, we need a lot of peace."
Andy Melnic, also a custodian, recalled a recent event in Barcelona where a room of 50 people collectively and spontaneously burst into tears as they stood before the relics.
"You can create a positive mind, and a positive result will come from it," he said. "People create a mind of kindness when they see these objects, even if just for a moment or for an hour. When you get that in a large group of people, it becomes a very powerful energy."
BUDDHISM IN MEXICO
Buddhism occupies a small space in the spiritual culture of Mexico, a Catholic country whose streets are peppered with small prayer altars and whose devoted believers make year-round pilgrimages by bus, bike or foot to the Basílica de Guadalupe in Mexico City.
Karam, the director of Casa Tibet México, said Japanese Zen Buddhism first came to Mexico in the 1940s through Mexican intellectuals interested in Asian culture. The nation's Tibetan Buddhist tradition has mostly grown in the city since his center was founded in 1989, he said.
This week marks the project's second stop in Mexico City, the first tour in 2007 bringing a separate cache of relics.
The exhibition, shown in Monterrey earlier this month, will also travel to Xalapa, Querétaro, León, Torreón, Chihuahua, Guadalajara and Guanajuato.
The relics have already been displayed more than 200 times in Asia, Europe and in the Americas.
Although the exhibition does not charge admission, the Maitreya Project is raising funds to build a 500-foot bronze Maitreya Buddha statue in northern India - at an estimated cost of $250 million.
The statue facility will also include a temple, museum, library and auditorium.
Karam said it's unlikely that the relics will ever return to Mexico. After the treasures make their final tour - the date of which is still yet to be determined - the relics will reside permanently within the Maitreya Buddha statue.
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