Molding Peace
Garden closes in on 1,000th Buddha
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Driving down the snow-packed dirt road leading to the EWAM Garden of 1,000 Buddhas, the colorful 25-foot statue of Yum Chenmo emerges from the white fields, bright and bold, against the stark mountainside in the distance. Also known as the “Great Mother,” or the perfect manifestation of the perfection of wisdom in the Buddhist tradition, the gold, cobalt blue, red and orange statue is surrounded by carefully constructed walls that make up the Dharma wheel. Soon these walls will be home to 1,000 Buddhas and 1,000 stupas, or hard-carved volcanic stone reliquaries. The stupas represent the enlighted mind and wait in crates shipped in from Indonesia stored next to the walls. Placed on the gau in front of each stupa will be 1,000 green Tara statues that were made in Taiwan. The garden also received 1,000 sogshings (rolled blessings, mantras and medicine) from a nunnery in Nepal, which will be inserted into each stupa.
“The stupas were all hand-carved by one family in Java,” said EWAM media and communications coordinator Deborah Hicks. “It’s been an international project.”
Ten years ago, Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche, an incarnate Tibetan Buddhist lama, founded the garden in an effort to bring together people of all faiths and cultures to a place that cultivates peace.
This year the garden will celebrate the eighth Annual Peace Festival, and Hicks said volunteers are planning several new events in the summer to unveil and highlight the garden’s progress.
“It was a very productive year,” Hicks said of completed projects in 2011, putting the garden right on schedule with major construction. All the work will accumulate with the anticipated blessing from the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. Hicks said there is no set date yet, adding that the Dalai Lama has a very busy schedule.
Whenever His Holiness’ visit is set, Rinpoche and volunteers would like a great deal of the garden complete.
Last year, irrigation was installed throughout the garden, along with a well and pump house. All eight inner walls, two outer throne walls and all the dirt pathways were replaced with handicapped-accessible walkways. A stupa carving and painting by Nepali artist Lama Sonam Tsering is finished on the back of the Yum Chenmo statue. Next up to tackle will be landscaping and paving a parking lot. Last year, 100 trees were donated and in the end, 1,000 trees will be planted on the 60-acre sanctuary. The first of 1,000 Buddha statues, created by local volunteers, has also been installed on one of eight spokes of the wheel.
The rest of the 835 total statues sit in the barn patiently waiting for the day they grace the walls, 1,000 strong, as well.
Every day the Buddha numbers grow as volunteer Jacob Ries, who has been a volunteer for about a year and a half, spends hours making sure each one comes out perfect.
Inside the barn by the warmth of a wood stove, Ries is a one-man crew most days, but on this chilly January day, he has two volunteers who drove up from Missoula to help.
Jamie Breidenbach read a story about the garden in a newspaper in Missoula and decided to call and see if she could arrange a visit.
To Breidenbach’s surprise and delight, she learned that not only was the garden open, but she could cast a statue.
This was a plus because her friend Jessy Lee had just returned from a backpacking trip in New Zealand and Breidenbach had yet to give her a Christmas present.
“I knew she wouldn’t want a ‘thing’ for Christmas,” Breidenbach said. “I thought (casting a statue) would be even better.”
Lee couldn’t agree more, her gloved hands full of concrete, smiling as she enjoyed her gift.
“I’m in the middle of a year-long backpacking adventure,” Lee said. “I can’t really carry much.”
The two worked the mixture in their hands like dough, placing it inside the Buddha cast, as Ries inserted a vibrating metal rod inside the mold to rid the concoction of bubbles.
Ries said it often takes five to 10 hours to cast and patch, or take out the imperfections, on one statue alone.
“It’s a very slow but wonderful process,” Ries shared.
After that, the statue then sits and cures in the mold for about three weeks. It is then taken out and smoothed with a fine sandpaper and weather sealed. The entire process takes about a month for each statue.
One of the final steps, after filling the mold, includes adding a bundle that contains sacred mantras, substances and herbs.
“Hold it over your heart,” Ries tells the two women, holding the bundle over his chest. “It is the last chance to add your spirit to the statue.”
They then take turns pushing the bundle into the statue they helped create.
“It’s been great,” Lee said of the volunteering opportunity. “It’s a fun environment.”
