Buddhism in the Library

Each year, the English honor society - Sigma Tau Delta - puts on a softball game between the students and the professors, something I have played in the past two years, but, unfortunately, it looks as if excessive rain will cancel this year, even though there is a rumor that the softball event will turn into a basketball event so it can be held in doors and out of the rain. As a result, I'm postponing my trip to the big city, until I know what's happening for sure.

Consequently, I've been doing homework and was just recently slogging away at my British Lit. novel in the library (I'm almost done!), but at 2:00 p.m. Buddhist monks, dressed in red and orange robes, performed a small ceremony, including blowing large horns, chanting, and clashing cymbals, in the lobby. Apparently, they had made a colored sand mandala yesterday and were in the process of sweeping it up into small mylar bags which they handed out to anyone who wanted one; one of them said that the sand from the mandala could be a blessing for those who decided to take it. I decided not to take one, not because I'm opposed to Buddhism - nothing could be further from the truth - but because I figured that my real desire for it actually came from a partial desire to have tangible proof that I saw Buddhist monks in the library - a purely materialist reason. Because it is my belief that sincere spirituality is central to our existence, I correspondingly feel that what I should take from the ceremony is the memory my being there and seeing it and the recognition that the real gifts are the ones created from consciously developing virtues.