With a pair of metal cymbals tucked under his left arm and his eyes closed under his golden headdress, chant master Ven Ngawang Jinpa began a deep resonating chord, his voice forming three tones at once in a joh-kay.

The voices of other gold- and red-robed Tibetan monks joined his, reverberating around the room, as they stood facing a dark wooden table on Saturday afternoon at Seret & Sons on Sandoval Street Santa Fe. To their right, on another table, stood a picture of the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader in exile.

Their chants and mantras asked permission from unseen spirits to share their space. The monks' songs intoned peace and harmony, invoked the forces of good. Before them, two dozen people of all ages, one with an oxygen tank, sat in chairs, their eyes closed and faces peaceful.

When they were finished, the monks removed their headdresses and set about the painstaking work they will do each day for the next two weeks — creating a mandala, delicate line upon line with colored sand.

When the mandala is completed, the monks will consecrate it on New Year's Eve. Then they will sweep up the sand and dismantle their work, a reminder that all things are impermanent.

Mandala translates into "ancient architecture of enlightenment," according to their spokesman Tenzin Phentsok. The mandala is a powerful force for good. "Even a single glimpse activates the positive energy within a person," he said.

Each mandala follows precisely dictated patterns set down in sacred texts dating back a millennium. The monks study five to seven years to learn the patterns by heart. "There is no individual freedom for the artist," Phentsok said. "The mandala must be done exactly as in the text."

Using chalk string and protractors, the monks measured out the lines of the mandala on the table. Bowls of colored sand stood nearby ready for the monks to gently lay down in lines, circles and triangles.

The monks are constructing a Green Tara mandala. "It has the power to heal those in the economic crisis and also at the individual level," Phentsok said.

It is a special blessing for everyone in Santa Fe, he added.

The monks making the mandala are from the Drepung Loseling Monastery, known for its Tibetan temple music where chant masters learn to control their voices in multiphonic or "overtone" singing. The monastery dates to 1416 in Tibet. After the Chinese invaded the country, the surviving monks fled to India and re-established a monastery.

Mandalas and the ceremonies surrounding their creation have long been a source of healing and protection, similar in ways to the ancient tradition of sand paintings used in Navajo healing ceremonies.

For years now, Drepung Loseling monks have conducted a Mystical Acts of Tibet Tour across the U.S. and around the world. Tenzin said this is the 11th tour and his second in the U.S. The group is visiting schools, churches and galleries raising money to support more than 2,500 monks in the monastery in India.

As part of the tour in Santa Fe, the group will perform an evening of sacred music and dance at 7 p.m. Dec. 27 at the James A. Little Theater, 1060 Cerrillos Road.

The New Year's Eve Mandala Dismantling Ceremony is from 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the gallery.

For more information, call Marcia Keegan at 989-9590 or Tshering at 988-3709.

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

If you go

What: Construction of a Green Tara sand mandala by Tibetan monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery in India
Where: Serets & Sons Gallery, 121 Sandoval St., next to Alpine Sports
When: 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily, Dec. 14-Dec. 31
Cost: Free. But donations are welcome to help exiled monks.