KAREN HUMPHRIES SALLICK (Tibetan Buddhist Practitioner): The mandala is a teaching and meditation tool so that we can focus on evoking in ourselves the Buddha nature that we Buddhists believe you have inside you.

A sand mandala is made typically from precious stones that have been hand-ground and then hand-dyed. The sand goes in a funnel. They’ll rub it and the sand will come out. That’s how they put these layers of sand down to create these beautiful, spiritual forms of art.

One can use the mandala as an aid to meditation helping you through the process of eliminating emotions that are unhelpful to you so that you can then uncover and evoke what’s in the center.

There are thousands of mandalas, and, in fact, even for one type of mandala there are several ways to do it, depending on how much time the monks have. You can take five days. You can take a month to build a mandala. Every aspect of the mandala has meaning.

The very center is the representation of Chenrezig, the Buddha of compassion. Tibetan Buddhists actually believe that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of Chenrezig.

The next ring outside of the central figure of compassion are representations of four different Buddhas. The Buddha for eliminating hatred is represented by a thunderbolt. Then we have a jewel that represents the deity that can eliminate suffering. Then we have a wheel of knowledge or dharma, the deity that represents the elimination of ignorance. And then the last is a green sword that cuts through jealousy.

The next circle are lotus leaves. If you’ve ever seen a statue of a Buddha, they are often sitting on a lotus flower, so the family of Buddhas that are represented in the center are sitting in a ring of lotus.

Then outside of that is the vadra ring of protection from negative thoughts.

Finally, in the very outside ring — fire, and that fire is to burn through ignorance to enlightenment.

The dissolution is actually a very important part of the mandala process, because it really is showing the nature of impermanence. As Westerners, we get so attached to things. So here’s this beautiful mandala that these monks have worked five days on. And, with no emotion whatsoever, they reach their hand into the middle and just mess it up. And then they’ll sweep it up with brushes, and they’ll place it into a vase.

The mandala will be brought to the water. The deities in the mandala will then go into the water as a blessing, back to the Earth.

The Tibetans believe that anyone who watches the building and dissolution of a mandala actually accumulates merit and can begin to evoke that Buddha nature, being the most compassionate we can be.

My lens is one of hope, based on six years of research and writing “The Monks of Tibhirine,” the book French director Xavier Beauvois called his “bible” for making his movie about Christian-Muslim friendship. My hope is also based on knowing the back story that goes untold in an otherwise excellent film focusing on the monks’ struggle to be true to their Trappist vows of poverty, charity, and stability when faced with their fear of a brutal death.

Some people today might say that Christian-Muslim love is an oxymoron. Yes, there are Muslims who preach hatred of the Christian West, even though fewer and fewer in the West (outside the US) are practicing or even professing Christians. There are no Muslims I have heard of who preach hatred or even disrespect for Jesus Christ, who is a much revered and sinless prophet in Islam.

There is, however, an active Christian minority that preaches hatred of Islam and regularly insults the Prophet Muhammad. Elements with political agendas on both sides benefit from blackening the other, and the media have been willing accomplices to this downward phobic spiral. “Of Gods and Men” is film that could help right perceptions.

Despite pleas in 1996 from both French and Algerian authorities to leave for a safer place when threatened by Islamic extremists, the monks remained at their remote monastery in Algeria’s Atlas Mountains out of deep sense of commitment to their extended family of villagers who depended on them for moral, medical, and material support. Like their neighbors, the monks trembled with fear at night. They argued among themselves: does the Good Shepherd abandon his flock when the wolves come? Does a mother abandon a sick, infectious child? Does their vow of poverty allow for them to flee to safer ground when their friends cannot?

When seven of the monks were kidnapped, it was not their neighbors who did it. Instead, it was a contract job that employed a group from outside the area to take the monks away from their dangerous situation—to be traded, in effect. But something went wrong along the way. Of one thing I am certain: killing them was not the plan. If that had been the case, they would not have been schlepped around the country for two months nor would negotiations for their release have taken place. Yet for some viewers, I suspect this will be seen as simply another “bad-Muslims-kill–good-Christians” story—exactly what the abbot of the monastery feared when he wrote his last testament, read at the end of the film.

The film works very well dramatically as a struggle between faith and fear. By necessity it leaves out important and broader story components. The tenacious commitment of Abbot Christian de Chergé (played by Lambert Wilson) to serve God in Algeria had been formed in him as a soldier serving in the French army during the Algerian war for independence from 1954 to 1962, when his life was saved by a Muslim friend, an Algerian policeman named Mohammed who faced down local rebels who wanted to shoot Christian one day when they were taking a walk—a time when they would discuss their faith.

That friendship cost the Algerian his life the next day. For Christian, Mohammed’s sacrifice was a gift of love reinforcing his belief that the spirit of Jesus Christ resides in all his children. For the rebels, the friend of my enemy is my enemy.

The film doesn’t have room to tell about the seventy-plus imams who, based on the same logic, were assassinated in the 1990s for denouncing what the terrorists were doing in the name of Islam. The terrorists themselves could show respect for the monks. In a dramatic scene in the film, Saya Attia, head of the terrorist group that intruded upon the monastery on Christmas Eve 1993 with demands for medical help, apologizes to Christian for disturbing their celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Left out are the leader’s final words to Christian when he extends a hand in friendship: “We don’t consider you foreigners…you are religious.”

Nor does the viewer know that the tiny hamlet of Tibhirine was inhabited by families whose homes in the mountains had been bombed by the French during the war for independence. They had fled to the protection of the monastery, a holy place where the Christian “marabouts” (Arabic for religious teachers) sheltered them until they could build their own homes.

I have one regret about the film. It might have ended on a more positive note for Christian-Muslim relations by showing the genuine remorse of much of the Algerian population. Archbishop Henri Teissier of Algiers received sacks of letters from ordinary Algerians after the monks’ deaths were confirmed. The letters expressed a deep sense of solidarity with the monks as well as a sense of shame that was captured by this one: “No matter what has happened, we truly love you. You are part of us. We have failed in our duty—to protect you, to love you. Forgive us…You must accomplish your divine mission with us. I believe it is God’s plan.”

Universal fraternal love is the essence of Christianity and all true religion. Otherwise, religion degenerates into celestial nationalism. Christian himself frequently said that if religion doesn’t help us to live together, it is worthless.

The idea may seem laughably naïve in a post-9/11 world. Love, however, has nothing to do with sentiment and everything to do with good will, justice, empathy, and respect for others. Like their Savior, the monks’ lives were not taken. They were gifts of love.

John W. Kiser is the author of “The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria” (St. Martins Press, 2002).

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BOB FAW, correspondent: For 900 years this has been the hallmark, indeed, the passion, of Cistercian monks—prayer seven times every day. Nearly five hours each day are devoted, says the superior of this abbey, to the solitary pursuit of friendship with God.

THE REV. BERNARD MCCOY (Superior, Cistercian Abbey): It’s really about a relationship with God, and prayer is just the word we give to the conversation and the relationship that we have with the divine person.

FAW: On nearly 600 remote acres in south central Wisconsin, even private time, as when Brother Stephen Treat walks the Stations of the Cross, even that time is spent, he says, lifting his mind exclusively to God.

BROTHER STEPHEN TREAT (Cistercian Abbey): The main part of our business is going into that church seven times a day and praising God and praying for the safety and well-being of the world.

FAW: Even when Father Bernard relaxes with his Spanish hotbloods Alejandro and Tinaco, or with the ordinary Bert, there is meditation.

FATHER BERNARD: Theirs is about being and about awareness, and there is a quietness to them, obviously, for the most part, so they are a very contemplative presence in our life.

FAW: The rituals, the routines here are familiar, but what sets this abbey apart is that while it keeps one foot in the 11th century, the other is firmly planted in the 21st. On the grounds nearby, with a background of Gregorian chants, is a high-powered Internet operation run by two laywomen which permits the abbey to flourish.

CINDY GRIFFITH (Co-Founder, Monk Helper Marketing and Co-Author, “Laser Monks”): We allow them to be what they were put on the planet to be—to be monks, to do good, to pray for the world.

FAW: All this began seven years ago when Father Bernard went to buy toner for his printer.

FATHER BERNARD: I said, you know, wow, this is just way too expensive for a bunch of black dust or a few squirts of ink. There has got to be a better way.

Lasermonks website

FAW: So in 2002 Father Bernard started LaserMonks, selling ink and toner to charitable groups at prices far less than office supply stores. In Colorado, online marketing experts Cindy Griffith and Sarah Caniglia noticed and gave Father Bernard a call.

SARAH CANIGLIA (Co-Founder, Monk Helper Marketing and Co-Author, “Laser Monks”): He said come on out to Wisconsin. He said there is beer, you know, there is beer, there are brats, come on out—we’re on 600 acres—and see what you think.

FAW: Sarah and Cindy didn’t just visit; they stayed.

SARAH CANIGLIA: I saw an opportunity to take the monks where they needed to be and to relieve—to take a business idea, the germ of an idea which he had, and turn that vision into a success.

FATHER BERNARD: It’s a wonderful symbiosis that lets us use our talents, lets them use their talents, and helps us do a lot of good work.

FAW: I would regard that as serendipitous. I gather you regard it almost as providential?

FATHER BERNARD: Both. I would call it sacred serendipity.

FAW: Now they also sell deluxe coffee, Benevolent Blends, with profits supporting families who pick the coffee beans—also chocolates, creamy caramels, jams, and jellies made in other monasteries. Sales last year were nearly five million dollars. Eighty percent of that was for expenses, but ten percent went to fund the abbey, and the remaining ten percent went to charity, from a camp for kids with HIV to Buddhists in Tibet.

FATHER BERNARD: So we’re a for-profit whose bottom line is to not make any profit at the end of the year, because it’s all given away in some form or fashion. That’s social entrepreneurism, really, at its radical best.

FAW: Their product line also includes Benevolent Biscuits, treats for dogs prepared in the abbey kitchen, rolled, stamped, and baked by the Cistercians themselves and sampled by the abbey’s quality control officer, Ludwig, the abbey’s Doberman Pinscher.

Here no talent is kept under a basket. What Father Robert Keffer paints will someday be sold to help maintain the abbey.

THE REV. ROBERT KEFFER (Subprior, Cistercian Abbey): You work during the work hours. You stop, you go to prayer. It’s a very—regimented is the wrong word, but it is a very disciplined life. So that’s a little hard for an artist: Oh, I’ve got this great inspiration. I can’t stop and pray now.

FAW: But you have to.

FATHER ROBERT: Yes, you have to, and you most certainly can.

FAW: So here there is a balance between the rigors of monasticism and the demands of the marketplace in an abbey which is both in the world and apart.

FATHER BERNARD: We have cell phones. We have Wi-Fi. We have, you know, things like the normal world. But we know when to turn them off.

FAW: Even though that takes some getting used to, says Brother Stephen Treat, who left what he says was a satisfying job for a Quaker social service agency because he felt the need to do something more.

BROTHER STEPHEN: You do miss certain things, but you would be surprised with what you replace it with, that here I am in a community of six guys, that if all works out I will spend the rest of my life with them and whoever comes after, and I will be buried on that hill, and that falls into an 80-year history of this house and a 900-year history of this order.

FAW: And for those who contend this way of life, this withdrawal from the world, is ultimately selfish, Cistercians have an answer for that.

BROTHER STEPHEN: The Christian tradition understands places like this, contemplative monasteries, as these lighthouses, these beacons where people are joined together in prayer and praying on behalf of the whole world.

FAW: Theirs is a calling which appeals only to a few, but a calling which transforms those who embrace its rigors, just as being part of this community has changed a lapsed Catholic and a divorced grandmother.

CINDY GRIFFITH: Personally, I think I’m more grounded, more settled, more peaceful. The abbey has brought that kind of religious part of me that I didn’t have before I came here.

SARAH CANIGLIA: For me it’s been as much of a spiritual journey as it has all other types of journeys. It’s really brought me back into the fold in a really slow, step-by-step, peaceful way.

FAW: So here, in this oasis of serenity, seven times every day the Psalms, the chants will continue to echo.

FATHER BERNARD: In some ways we perch a little bit more lightly on this planet, and, you know, we have one foot firmly planted in the earth and another one off in the heavens.

FAW: Here, where they live both simply and smartly, having learned, as one put it, “only those who can see the invisible can accomplish the impossible.”

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly this is Bob Faw in Sparta, Wisconsin.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In Myanmar in Southeast Asia, tens of thousands of Buddhist monks have been marching against the military government and where the regime cracked down, violently. Scott Flipse is a senior policy analyst at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, where he specializes in U.S. policy toward Asia. Welcome.

SCOTT FLIPSE (Senior Policy Analyst, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom): Thank you.

ABERNETHY: Tell us about the power of Buddhist monks in Myanmar and what they accomplished with their march.

Dr. FLIPSE: Buddhist monks are powerful in Burma because of their moral authority. There’s possibly up to half a million Buddhist monks and novices, and I think going out into the streets signifies to the people of Burma that the monks no longer believe the government has Buddhist bona fides.

ABERNETHY: Buddhist values?

Dr. FLIPSE: Buddhist values, right.

ABERNETHY: Such as?

Dr. FLIPSE: Such as minimizing sorrow, maximizing happiness, supporting the poor, and promoting Buddhist values such as generosity and compassion.

ABERNETHY: Does that mean that the Buddhist monks’ demonstration was for those values more than it was for democracy?

Dr. FLIPSE: Well, I mean if you looked at the signs that they were demonstrating [with] it said, “Love and Kindness” and not about democracy. But democracy is the form which I think most of the younger monks believe will bring about Buddhist values and reconciliation.

ABERNETHY: We saw some photographs of Buddhist monks holding their rice bowls upside down. What’s the significance there?

Dr. FLIPSE: It’s called turning over the rice bowl, which is a Buddhist form of excommunication. They are playing spiritual hardball saying that the military cannot be Buddhist, cannot give alms, cannot practice generosity.

ABERNETHY: And the reason that has power is because that is a good deed that then will serve them well in the next life? Is that the idea?

Dr. FLIPSE: Yeah, there’s a merit aspect to alms-giving as well. So I guess they’re telling the military that they don’t believe that they are good Buddhists.

ABERNETHY: So came the crackdown and a lot of casualties and arrests. Does that mean that the Buddhist monks have failed?

Dr. FLIPSE: No, I don’t think so. It’s yet to be seen. The government had to decide whether or not it was going to shoot Buddha in the streets. I think it did; it made that choice. And I think it signifies to the Burmese people, again, that this military government has no political legitimacy. It has — it does not represent Buddhist values.

ABERNETHY: And so, very quickly, does that suggest a backlash against the government?

Dr. FLIPSE: I think it’s a start of a revolution of the spirit, which may have political implications later on.

ABERNETHY: Scott Flipse of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, many thanks.

Dr. FLIPSE: Thank you.

The sangha, the community of Buddhist monks, played an important role, second only to that of students, in the democracy movement of 1988. In Mandalay, for example, it is widely believed that the participation of thousands of monks, manning the barricades and providing security, prevented that city from descending into the anarchy witnessed in Rangoon and elsewhere in the country at that time.

Since the failure of the 1988 movement, the military enacted a number of institutional measures that successfully hindered students’ capacity to organize politically. This included the suspension of classes for long periods and permanently emptying the main urban universities, and in their place requiring students to attend newly built satellite campuses in isolated rural areas.

Such measures could not be enacted easily with respect to the Burmese sangha, given its organization and ubiquitous presence throughout the country, from rural monasteries in virtually every village and town to the large monastic colleges of Rangoon and Mandalay. This country-wide array of institutions represents a network of communication and cooperation that typically transcends regional and ethnic differences and traditionally has always been an avenue by means of which monks could quietly organize, whatever the purpose. While institutional matters pertaining to the sangha are overseen at the national level by the central government’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, sangha loyalty and political sentiment remains naturally wedded to those of its principal donors, in this case everyday citizens, most of them poor — farmers, laborers, government servants, petty merchants, and so on, most of whom also intensely dislike the current regime.

As of Wednesday (Sept. 26), the news broadcasts are reporting that the Burmese government has begun to crack down on the monk-led demonstrations. Doubtless security forces will be able to suppress this outbreak of political expression with force as they have done so many times before. But will the military junta ever succeed in wooing the sangha from its ties with ordinary people and turn it into a willing instrument of religious-political legitimation in this devoutly Buddhist country? Perhaps the generals themselves do not believe so. At the base of the Shwedagon Pagoda, prominently placed and gorgeously decorated, one can find a specially built ordination hall reserved for the sons of military families, a ritual space for creating new monks, and in this case perhaps a new religious caste in this otherwise casteless religion of the Buddha.

– Patrick Pranke teaches Asian religions at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, where his area of specialization is Burmese Buddhism.

Socially engaged Buddhism has added a significant voice to public discourse in Asia since it developed after World War II. Its concrete efforts to translate Buddhism into a means of positive social change for the benefit of all living beings has resulted in numerous and highly successful projects for social and environmental justice. Socially engaged Buddhists in Asia have produced initiatives for health care in poor areas, for peace building in conflict areas, and even for interreligious cooperation on a global scale.

These successes, however, have taken place in developing and developed countries that respect human rights and religious freedom, such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. In countries where freedoms are tightly controlled by central governments, these successes have, by and large, not happened. This is true of Myanmar.

For the near future, I expect the government of Myanmar to block the monks in their monasteries and repress any demonstrations by the Buddhist laity. The result of the demonstrations will be failure.

In the long run, however, dialogue between the monastic leaders and the government may lead to positive changes. This is now happening in China, where engaged “humanistic Buddhism” is working with the government to address social and environmental issues of concern to all Chinese. Since the Chinese government is a close ally of Myanmar, my hope is that they will encourage the Myanmar government to engage in dialogue with Buddhist leaders for the good of the country and region.

– Donald W. Mitchell is a religious studies professor at Purdue University and the author of BUDDHISM: INTRODUCING THE BUDDHIST EXPERIENCE (Oxford University Press).

BOB ABERNETHY: This month in eastern France, the Christian ecumenical community in Taizé is celebrating its birthday. It was founded at the beginning of World War II by a young Swiss theologian named Roger Shutz who wanted to work for peace and help refugees by celebrating Christian unity. Today, more than 100 men — Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox, from all over the world — are monks there, led by Brother Roger. The community has no preaching but has become famous for its simple, meditative music, and prayer. Many thousands of visitors, especially young people, travel to Taizé every summer, and this past summer Paul Miller did, too. We begin with his report.

PAUL MILLER: At 8:30 each morning, in the small town of Taizé, the bells call people to the first of three daily services. On this day, 6,000 people will answer the call.

Brother EMILE (Taizé Brother): People want to be touched — not just in an emotional, sentimental sense, but what the Bible means by heart is something much deeper, the real me that wants to be touched by God. That’s what draws people.

MILLER: Taizé was founded by Brother Roger, the son of a Swiss Calvinist pastor. He too is Protestant, but in 1940, he was drawn to this part of Burgundy by the famous medieval Catholic monastery of Cluny, five miles from Taizé.

The town was also near the border between German-occupied northern France and the Vichy-controlled South. It quickly became a place of refuge — Brother Roger offered shelter to Jews and others fleeing the Nazis until he was warned they had been betrayed. Everyone escaped safely.

After the war, he returned to Taizé to found a community of Christian brothers, committed to celibacy, simplicity, and spiritual sharing. Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant, now from 25 countries, they hold common Christian beliefs and conduct services with no liturgy and no priest leading them. Brother Roger, now 87, says his community is dedicated to listening — to God, and to others.

Brother ROGER (in translation): Searching together — not wanting to become spiritual masters who impose — God never imposes. We want to love and listen, we want simplicity.

MILLER: Young people began coming here on their own in the late 1950s, looking for communion with God and with people from other countries.

AMY GATJE (Los Angeles, California): For me, being at Taizé is a living experience of the kingdom of God — you have people from all over the world speaking every language imaginable. They are together to worship God, to seek peace, to listen to one another.

CALEB NELSON-AMAKER (Charlottesville, Virginia): When you come to Taizé you’re put in a group with a bunch of people from different cultures, different societies, and there’s nothing planned about it — there are no planned answers, it’s all reality.

MILLER: The most important part of the experience is the services, and young people have responded to Taizé in ever increasing numbers, asking to participate in the worship. Now thousands are invited each summer. But the emphasis is less on being here and more on what happens when they go home.

They are asked to be part of a pilgrimage of trust — to be involved in their own communities, to be peace makers and witnesses for reconciliation.

Brother EMILE: We like the word “pilgrim” because a pilgrim is someone who doesn’t have all the answers, who is poor; someone who doesn’t carry all the answers in his luggage but someone who sets out because of his or her faith. And that’s what we wanted to propose to people — to take a risk because of your faith.

MILLER: The number of pilgrims has grown — and so has the popularity of the Taizé service. For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Paul Miller in Taizé, France.

BOB ABERNETHY: The spirituality of Taizé services has influenced Christian worship around the world, including in the U.S. Every month at Ascension Catholic Church in Oak Park, Illinois, there is a special Taizé service. David Anderson is the music director there.

DAVID ANDERSON (Music Director, Ascension Catholic Church, Oak Park, Illinois): Many people that come to this service probably do have a church they go to on Sundays. But this is a different way for people to experience the holy, to try to open themselves to God’s presence in their life.

The service begins with several Taizé chants.

The purpose of those two or three chants that we begin with is to help people make the transition from the business of their day into the spirit of the prayer.

At our monthly prayer we have a candle lighting. All the children will come forward to the cross and light their candles, and they’ll take their candles through the church. And at that time everybody stands and we sing an alleluia.

The purpose of the service of light is to remind people that Christ is the light that shatters all darkness in the world. It’s a very joyful time in the service.

There is normally a Scripture reading. The point of the Scripture is to proclaim God’s word, to allow people to hear God’s word. Later in the service it will provide a source for people to meditate on.

There’s no preaching at a Taizé service. We listen to God’s word and we offer our prayers. We don’t have some dogmatic sermon or homily; it’s pure prayer in that way.

Then, people will bring their candles forward — a great procession of light. They will place their candles in containers around the altar area.

There are various icons, ancient Christian images.

For some people it’s a wonderful way of being united with everyone that’s here. It seems that Christians often want to focus on their differences instead of the unity that already exists.

In the United States we often talk about building Christian unity. But in the mind of the Taizé community, it’s helping people come to an awareness of the unity we already share.

That lighted candle can be symbolic of a prayer they’re holding in their heart. It can be symbolic of a loved one or a friend who’s in great need.

We have a period of silence. And the period of silence lasts about ten minutes.

Everybody in this church prays in a different way. What we try to provide here is a place and a space for people to encounter the presence of God in silence.

Then we have intercessory prayer, and we believe that’s one of the greatest things we can do — pray for each other and pray for peace. We open it up in the church, and we allow people to pray for whatever the feel they need to pray for.

We end with a final hymn or song or chant. Music can be very powerful. It doesn’t have to be extravagant, it can be very simple. And that is the whole point of worship music. It’s supposed to help people in their spiritual search.