Tibetan Buddhist nuns are trying to help Lewiston heal from the mass shooting that left 18 dead and 13 injured last October.
On Wednesday at Bates College, they created a mandala.
It’s an ornate, three-dimensional image made from colored grains of sand that the nuns painstakingly put together throughout the week.
Bates said the spiritual practice is to generate positive energy and to heal and cleanse the environment.
It’s a process the nuns work months to achieve.
The nuns said this is one of the first mandalas ever put together in the U.S. by Buddhist nuns.
“The nuns trained in this for the last year intensively, this is the very first time that they’re offering it,” Bates College spiritual adviser Venerable Tenzin Dasel said. “They were trained by monks, and it is the first time monks gave this transmission to the nuns, so it’s the first time in the nation, first time in history.”
The mandala will be swept away Friday as part of the ceremony.
The nuns also performed sacred dances.
