On the second floor of City Hall in Jersey City, just around the corner from the mayor’s office, three Tibetan monks have been immersed in the quiet creation of a sand mandala since Monday morning.

Mandalas, made out of millions of grains of sand colored in 13 different hues, are a 2,500-year Tibetan tradition representing the universe. As soon as they are completed, a task that can take up to a month, they are destroyed, symbolizing the impermanence of life.

The mandala under creation on the second floor of City Hall is called Medicine Buddha. The multi-colored sand, poured onto a platform using a metal funnel called a chakpur, has been used with painstaking precision to create chains of white flowers; vajras, a Buddhist symbol drawn here on blocks of red or yellow sand; and, in the center of it all, eight Buddhas.

“It’s just so unbelievable to be able to have this,” said Pat Drennan, 51, who saw pictures of the mandala’s creation on Mayor Steve Fulop’s Facebook page and decided to come to 280 Grove St. to watch.

Linda Woznicki, 51, joined him. Woznicki has worked at Tibet House, a New York-based organization dedicated to preserving Tibetan culture, and so she was familiar with the tradition

“Couldn’t miss it,” she said as Drennan snapped photos of the monks at work. “It’s not something you see every day.”

The Sera Mey Kongpo monks, from South India, have been working for almost 10 hours daily to finish the mandala in time for tomorrow’s ceremony, taking brief breaks to nosh on oranges or sip ginger tea. They occasionally cover their mouths with masks as they work, sitting cross-legged, their faces just inches away from the tiny drops of sand they drop onto the platform.

They are visiting thanks to former Gov. Jim McGreevey, whose sister, Sharon, is friends with Geshe Wangdu, a Tibetan monk who lives in Jersey City.

Wangdu said monks train for months to create the mandalas, which are thought to bring harmony to the places where they are created. The four-foot-square Medicine Buddha mandala will be dissolved tomorrow, and then the sand thrown into the Hudson River.

Wangdu said the destruction of the mandala should be seen as a beautiful event, one that reminds us that material things are fleeting.

“Usually, we believe a house, money will give you happiness,” Wangdu told The Jersey Journal. “Buddha says that is not real happiness.”

The dismantling ceremony is scheduled to begin tomorrow at 4 p.m. at City Hall.