TRAVELING TIBETAN BUDDHIST MONKS RETURN TO THE UPPER KEYS – Florida Keys Weekly

Longtime Islamorada resident Karin Wolfe is preparing to welcome some very special guests. At the end of this month, Wolfe will host three of seven touring Tibetan monks who will be passing through the Upper Keys on what is called a sacred arts tour.
“I’m assuming they get up early and do their meditation and maybe chant and have tea, which would be kind of a nice thing to have that vibe in my house,” Wolfe said, who is a member of the nonprofit Keys For Peace, the main sponsor of the tour. “I get up early and do the same thing, so maybe I’ll get to do it with them; I don’t know, we’ll see.”
“They just have such a beautiful presence that when you’re around them, you feel very calm and peaceful and you just feel the love coming from them,” added Wolfe.
This will be the ninth tour through the Upper Keys for the Tibetan Buddhist monks and all events are free and open to the public. Their last Upper Keys visit took place in 2020 right before the pandemic. Before arriving in the Upper Keys at the end of this month, they will go to Key West.
Keys to Peace founding member Denise Downing said the purpose of the monks’ pilgrimage is threefold.
The first mission is to bring awareness to the importance of interfaith harmony and compassionate living.
The exiled Tibetan Buddhist monks are from the Drepung Gomang monastery in southern India and the second reason for the tour is to keep their Tibetan culture alive.
“It’s been more than 60 years that the communist Chinese took over Tibet,” Downing said. “There have been decades of human rights violations and abuse, decades of oppression,”
The third goal of the tour is to help raise funds for their monastery, which has more than 2,000 monks.
The tour will take place at several venues across the Upper Keys beginning on Tuesday, Jan. 28. Locations include the Key Largo library for a cultural performance. A Tibetan marketplace will be held at Coral Isles Church and the Islander Resort. The JOY Center in Islamorada will host a question-and-answer session with the monks and a Tibetan marketplace as well.
Business and home blessings can be scheduled for a suggested donation.
The opening ceremony kicks off on Tuesday, Jan. 28 at the Florida Keys History and Discovery Center at the Islander Resort, where the monks will begin the four-day process of creating the World Peace Sand Mandala. A mandala is a geometric design or pattern that represents the universe or deities.

“This is an event not to be missed, because even when you know what is going to happen to that mandala, it kind of takes your breath away,” Downing said.
To create the mandala, the monks will use traditional tools to painstakingly arrange millions of granules of colored sand in the form of symbols of the world’s most prominent religions, creating what looks like an intricate and priceless piece of art.
“In our culture we would want to put shellac and varnish over it and save it forever and hang it on the wall,” Downing said.
But that is not what will happen. At the closing ceremony four days later, the head monk will cut the mandala like a pizza. The other monks will then sweep all of the sand into a pile and pour the sand into the ocean.
The symbolic gesture is meant to teach non-attachment or impermanence. In Buddhism, it’s the concept that all things are in a state of constant change, so nothing is permanent. Reflecting and meditating on impermanence can lead to insight that promotes freedom.

Emily Steele is the project coordinator for the tour. She has been busy rounding up sponsors, posting flyers around the Upper Keys and getting the word out.
“One of the big things they will be doing are pet blessings,” Steele said. Besides having businesses and homes blessed, attendees can have their pets blessed by the monks. That will take place on Feb. 1 during Winterfest at Coral Isles Church in Islamorada.
Steele hopes for a strong turnout.
“I think at this time where we are in our nation and in our world, what they can bring us is knowledge that peace is always there, that it’s something that we cultivate as a human race and we can either choose to cultivate that or we can choose to be divided away from it,” Steele added.
Sponsors for the festival include Keys to Peace, The JOY Center, Monroe County Public Library, Islander Resort, the Ragged Edge Oceanfront Resort and Marina and Coral Isles Church.
Information on blessings for a home or business is available from Steele at 303- 990-0619 or via email to sacredartstour2025@gmail.com. More information is available by following Sacred Arts Tour 2025 on Facebook.

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