The Venerable Tenzin Yignyen, a Buddhist monk and visiting professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, returned to Ross School this week to share his message of compassion with the Ross community. Lama Tenzin's visits have been an annual event since 2005, a 17-year tradition interrupted only by the COVID-19 pandemic. Lama Tenzin teaches about compassion, peace, and love for one another. Parents were invited to join the daily meditations he led for the community each morning as it is a Ross tradition for Lama Tenzin to engage our students and families with enlightening messages of compassion, loving kindness, and mindfulness.

During each visit, Lama Tenzin creates an intricate sand mandala. Nursery students (pictured above) met him on Monday morning for a lesson on the process of creating a sand Mandala of Compassion. They learned how Tenzin creates different colored sand, the tools he uses to create the mandala, and the importance of compassion in all of our lives.

At the end of the week, Lama Tenzin swept the sand into a vessel, and accompanied by students in grades 3 and 4 and their families, took the sand to Long Beach where he blessed it as it was released it into the water. We are looking forward to welcoming him back to campus this fall with a visit to the Upper School.

 Click here to watch videos of Lama Tenzin's past visits to Ross.