Four share message of love, compassion
By ANNA DAVISON
Four Buddhist monks led nearly a thousand people down State Street on Saturday in a rain-soaked call for peace.
It was the 26th Saturday that antiwar protesters had gathered in downtown Santa Barbara, but this time, the shouts denouncing an attack on Iraq mingled with chiming bells and the scent of burning incense.
At a rally before the march, Tashi Dhundup, a Tibetan monk who fled across the Himalayas to Mongolia, asked participants to “join in prayer and meditation to make peace and love in this world.”
He and three other monks, Tenzin Chophel, Mendbayar Baasanjav and Adiyaragchaa Altantsetseg, have traveled from Mongolia to visit 23 cities in America and Canada.
“We Tibetans and Mongolians always practice about compassion and love and peace,” Tashi Dhundup said.
The monks have already joined in peace marches in other parts of the country, but this — the “Emergency Convergence for Peace,” organized by Not In Our Name-Santa Barbara — was the largest they’d seen.
Even with the possibility of war drawing close, Tashi Dhundup said he thinks peace might still prevail.
“With public support it is possible,” he said, pointing to a sign that read “This is what democracy looks like.”
As the monks walked down State Street behind a banner proclaiming “Tibetan Mongolian Monk Tour 2002-2003,” they carried a container filled with sand that they’d brought from India.
Earlier, they’d used the sand to form a mandala — a traditional artwork that is deliberately destroyed, with the sand then returned to a stream, river or ocean.
“In our tradition it stands for the compassion and love,” Tashi Dhundup said. “I believe compassion is the only seed of peace.”
On Saturday morning, the monks swept up their mandala and carried the sand with them on their journey down State Street.
Later, after the peace march reached Chase Palm Park, they headed for the beach.
There, sheltered under umbrellas proffered by peace protesters, the monks rang bells and chanted.
Mendbayar Baasanjav took off his shoes and walked into the seething surf to scatter the sand.
“We share our love and compassion with you all,” Tashi Dhundup said.
“We don’t seem to have an answer to the violence,” remarked Kymberlee Ruff-Burnell, who has hosted the monks during their weeklong stay in Santa Barbara. “But the Buddhists and the Hopi Indians seem to have the answer.”
“They really are loving — 24/7,” she said of the monks. “They never get angry about anything. … They’re always happy.”
Tashi Dhundup and the three other monks will travel to Los Angeles today. Evidently, they’ll take with them fond memories of this town.
“Santa Barbara is a peace land,” Tashi Dhundup said. “Everything is green. People want peace, too.”
