Mystical Arts of Tibet: Sacred Music Sacred Dance for World Healing

In recent years The Mystical Arts of Tibet tours, featuring the famed multiphonic singers of Drepung Loseling monastery, have taken the world by storm. Endorsed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a means of promoting world peace and healing through sacred performing art. They have performed in many of America's greatest theaters and music halls. Among their many accomplishments:

The Drepung Loseling monks are featured on the Golden Globe nominated soundtrack of the motion picture Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt. They also performed with Philip Glass in the live premiere presentation of his Academy Award nominated music/score to the Martin Scorsese film Kundun.

Two of the CDs by the Loseling multiphonic singers, Sacred Tibetan Temple Music and Sacred Music Sacred Dance achieved a top ten listing on the US new age charts.

Tibetan multiphonic chanting was an integral part of the music composed by Mickey Hart for the opening ceremony of the 1996 Centennial Olympics in Atlanta.

The Mystical Arts of Tibet was featured at the July 4th, 2000 celebration at the National Mall, Washington, D.C. where they performed to an audience of over 50,000.

On previous tours the monks have shared the stage with Philip Glass, Kitaro, Paul Simon, Sheryl Crow, Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, Natalie Merchant, the Beastie Boys, and many others. As well as performing in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, the Herbst Theater and the Ravinia Festival, they have appeared in hundreds of university auditoriums, civic halls, festivals and churches across the country.

About the Performance

The Sacred Music Sacred Dance performance comprises eleven selections, described below. The announcer gives a general introduction at the beginning of the performance, as well as a brief explanation of the meaning and purpose of each selection interjected between each piece.

The entire performance lasts approximately two hours and comprises the following:

Part One: (1 hour)

1) Nyen-sen: Invocation of the Forces of Goodness
In a tapestry of instrumental and vocal sounds, the monks invoke creative awareness within themselves and the audience. They enhance the spirit of goodness in the environment as a prelude to the performance of Sacred Music Sacred Dance.

2) Man-del: Purifying the Universe
As they sing in the multiphonic style typical of Drepung Loseling's dominant role at the annual Monlam Chenmo Festival, the monks create a world as seen through the eyes of inner perfection. This is sent forth as an offering for world healing and is symbolized by the raising of a silver base on which mounds of rice are poured in a geometric pattern.

3) Sha-nak Gar-cham: Dance of the Black Hat Masters
This ancient dance for the elimination of negative energies and hindrances is in the style known as drak-po, or "wrathful." The implements held by the dancers symbolize the transcendence of false ego-identification on the outer (the environment), inner (the emotions), and the secret (the
subtle body-mind link) levels. Their movements symbolize the joy and freedom of seeing reality in its nakedness.

4) Dak-zin Tsar-chod: A Melody to Sever the Ego Syndrome
Descending in a lineage from Pa-dam-pa Sang-gay and the eleventh-century female mystic Ma-chik Lab-don, this tradition of meditative music is considered amongst the most hauntingly beautiful to emanate from the Land of Snows. Its purpose is to release the mind from the egoclinging
habit.

5) Tak-tsey Tong-ya: Intense Encounters of the Third Degree
A demonstration of the tradition of Tibetan monastic inquiry. Two monks engage one another in a process leading to the deeper levels and implications of spiritual experience, thus enhancing the mind of enlightenment.

6) Seng-geh Gar-cham: The Snow Lion Dance
In Tibet the snow lion symbolized the fearless and elegant quality of the enlightened mind. When a healthy and harmonious environment is established by the creative activities of human beings, such as through the performance of sacred purification and healing music, all living beings, here represented by the snow lion, rejoice.

Part Two (40 minutes)

1) Dur-dak Gar-cham: Dance of the Skeleton Lords
To remind the world of the ephemeral nature of all things, and of the liberating and balancing impact of an awareness of this reality, two monks appear as the forces of goodness manifest as Cemetery Lords. These are Dharmapala, or "Protectors of Truth," with the message to point the mind toward authentic being.

2) Ten-trul Yul-tru: Purifying the Environment and Its Inhabitants
Chanting in the multiphonic tradition, the monks hold up a mirror and draw into it the reflection of the world and its living beings. They then purify these through sound and meditation, as symbolized by the act of pouring waters from a sacred wisdom vase over the mirror. Traditionally this piece was performed whenever an environmental, social or individual healing was required.

3) Kha-dro Ten-shug Gar-cham: Dance of the Celestial Travelers
Five dancers, symbolizing the five elements and five wisdoms, together with three musicians, invoke the sounds and movements of the Celestial Travelers, the mystical beings from another world whose blessings strengthen the forces of life and light. These beings visit our world in times of stress and danger, bringing with them the creative energy that inspires harmony and peace.

4) Yak-cham: The Yak Dance
When the human world enters into a mode of balanced and wholesome living, all life forms rejoice, including those of the animal kingdom. This is here represented by the ecstatic dance of the yak, the animal unique to Central Asia and symbolic of the Tibetan spirit of rugged strength and playfulness.

5) Sang-tsol Zhi-jo: Incense Offering & Auspicious Song for World Peace
The monks send forth the smoke of incense, which the wind carries into the ten directions as a subliminal force invoking peace, harmony and the ways of creative living.

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