I came across this video on the excellent Kurungabaa blog. Reminded me of my university days, as I spent a considerable amount of time one quarter researching and writing a paper on the sand mandala ritual as practiced by Tibetan monks.
Below the fold is that term paper. There are a few rough patches, but I think it holds up well.
CAUTION: The following well exceeds normal blog post lengths…
The Mandala
The Earth is a living mandala—a structural matrix through and from which flow a progression of seasonal changes. Its flow, though working through a relatively well-defined structure, is subject to an infinite process of growth and transformation. In its essence, the mandala pertains not just to the earth but to the microcosm and the macrocosm of all living matter. It is the gatepost which connects the two and reveals a true universality within all existence. This universality is found in its one constant, the center, which functions as a reference point for the self to identify. Various cultures throughout history have utilized this notion of the mandala as the visual manifestation of a divine truth, a unifying template for the mind that resolve both the chaos of the actual world and the internal tensions of one’s consciousness1. One such culture which has arguably achieved the fullest and most complex development of the mandala is that of the Tibetan Buddhists. Both as an artistic form and as a meditative ritual emphasizing cosmic integration, their construction of sand mandalas can be viewed as explicit demonstrations which, by utilizing the mandala’s disposition as the archetypal symbol of wholeness, transfer positive healing throughout the world. Beyond its physical practice, inherent within the sand mandala ritual and its transference is Carl Gustav Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious; specifically that the mandala is a primordial image which has existed in the consciousness of all individuals and represents the idealized, harmonious psychic state. This therefore posits that any true realization of the divine can only manifest itself through the individual, without any influence of hierarchical powers. The sand mandala ritual is a process which functions to facilitate such discovery.
In traditional Buddhist teachings, mandalas exist as objects of meditation and contemplation with a specific purpose: to transform ordinary perception of the world into total awareness of the buddha/perfect nature which permeates all reality. It is believed that ignorance is a lack of this awareness, an impurity of perception that views the outer world and one’s body within it as ordinary, substantially existing entities. From this impure perception come the negative emotions of suffering, or “samsara” which is the vicious cycle of conditioned existence2. The three vehicles used to overcome this suffering correspond to the three fundamental aspects of Buddhist teachings: renunciation, compassion, and pure perception. Renunciation is the first step; it accompanies a profound weariness, a dissatisfaction with the conditions of samsara and a heartfelt disillusionment with worldly concerns. Compassion is born from the realization that both the individual “self” and the appearance of the physical world are devoid of any inherent reality. An enlightened being, one who has understood the ultimate nature of all things, naturally feels boundless compassion for those who continue to wander and suffer in samsara. Finally, pure perception is recognition of this notion of voidness; it entails looking closer at the nature of appearances and realizing that they have no true existence. Their appearance is merely the result of various causes and processes that have been conditioned into the mind. Once voidness is realized as being inseparable from physical reality, again a sense of all-embracing compassion is felt for individuals who are still immersed in samsara’s suffering and clinging to the notion of the ego3. This is where the ritual of sand mandalas comes into relevance. Functioning as a therapeutic tool to aid this suffering and break the individual out of a conditioned mindset, these mandalas are constructed with great care and concentration to help visually manifest the various levels of awareness within the individual as well as cultivate an energy that unifies and heals. Indeed, the making of a sand mandala is not simply a self-serving ritualistic exercise, but rather is a self-integrating universal activity that is intended to exert benefits for collective humanity and to reveal the self as the only true source of ultimate knowledge.
The ritual, though structurally remaining consistent, may be performed in a number of different contexts with varying representational meanings. Years of technical artistic training and memorization, learning how to draw all the various symbols and studying the related philosophical concepts must be completed before a monk is even permitted to construct a mandala. As it has existed historically, the ritual is tied explicitly into a larger rite-of-passage or initiation ceremony for younger monks studying at a monastery, acting as just a small piece of a larger symbolic whole. Though these ceremonies are still very much performed today, contemporary constructions of sand mandalas have turned more and more into public demonstrations with the purpose of creating transmissions of positive energy. This development reinforces the notion of the mandala as a universality; how one’s perception of their basic motif, identifying the relationship between shape, pattern, and symmetry is really in actuality a recognition of the self and its consciousness. Transformation of this energy could not occur if this were not the case.
To gain a better understanding of this larger significance, it is necessary to examine more precisely the actual process of the ritual. Prayers, or mantras, are performed at the start of the ritual to help designate the chosen area as a sacred space. These chants are varied and repeated throughout the entire process, signaling an unending channel of communication with the very same sacred realm which they are visually portraying. Four monks begin applying the sand to the drawing of the mandala, as the drawing grows larger they are joined by four more monks. On the second day the drawing is completed, and from the third to eighth day the monks apply the colored sand for a total of seven days’ work. No matter what the mandala size (usually 6 ½ feet in diameter), the work of applying the sand is always started at the very center and progresses outward. In the early stages of painting, while the sand mandala is smaller than three feet in diameter, the monks sit on the outer part of the unpainted mandala base, always facing the center. It is believed that if one steps over, on, or sits on a ritual instrument, scripture, or mandala, it is not only a sign of disrespect but is also equivalent to the breaking of one’s vow4. To avoid such an incident, the monks recite prayers each day, visualizing the lines of the drawing as being lifted above the mandala base and remaining suspended above until the workday is completed. At the end of each work session, the monks dedicate any artistic or spiritual merit accumulated from the activity to the benefit of others, exemplifying again sentiments of humility and compassion which focus on collective rather than singular effect. The instruments used in applying the sand even transmit this idea of a communal significance. Utilizing a simple metal rod called a “chakpu,” two are used in the application and together their actions symbolize wisdom and compassion5. As one chakpu filled with the colored sand rest in the monk’s palm, the other hollow chakpu is rubbed across the top. This creates a vibration that causes the sand to flow like water, accordingly creating positive energies that transmit to all who visually come into contact with the applied sand.
Once the entire mandala is completed on the eighth day it is left to exist in its finished state for the viewing public, but only temporarily. Before wiping it away, prayers request that the deities depicted return to their sacred abodes. Once the monk presiding over the prayers is satisfied that the deities have left, the dismantling process is begun and the sand is abruptly swept up into an urn. The temporality of the mandala being presented in its completed form points to the essence of Buddhists teachings. The dismantling may be interpreted as a lesson in nonattachment, a letting go of the “self-mind”6. It reflects the Buddhists’ recognition of the impermanence and the transitory nature of all aspects of life. Since the mandala is truly only meant to exist in the reality of one’s mind, the most effective means of preservation is through destruction. After all the sand has been collected and put into the urn, the monks carry the sand to a nearby river or ocean in a procession. At the water, the monks sit on a carpet with the urn containing the sand in front of them. In their prayers they request that the protective spirits of the water accept the consecrated sand for the benefit of all beings. They visualize the aquatic life within the water as being blessed by the essence of the sand. When the purified water rises from the ocean to the clouds and falls from the clouds as rain onto land, it consequently purifies the entire environment and all its inhabitants. They then pour the sand into the water, saving some to give to those observing the celebration. Each person receives a small amount of blessed sand and is instructed to take it home and place it in a body of water, thus concluding the ritual ceremony.
To construct an adequate examination of the greater significance of the sand mandala ritual it is necessary to identify a dichotomy of experiences taking place within it and what the larger ramifications of those experiences are. On one side there are the monks whose relationship to the mandala is intrinsically bound to the esoteric meanings contained within a hugely vast iconography. On the other is a less specified connection of the outsider looking in, having more to do with psychological associations and the recognition of a coherent set of symbols that constitute a larger symbolic system. While these two experiences seem to be disparate in the sense of their process and participation, their actual causality and ultimate realization are fundamentally the same. They are simply two separate paths leading to the same ends: self-knowledge, i.e. enlightenment. The mandala functions as the tool, a structured system that attempts to define for the individual the processes of nature as a set of interrelationships unified into a cohesive whole7. Since it is the mind that realizes and integrates the various parts of a given system, such a system may also be described as a map of consciousness. Only through this map can there be an actualizing of true knowledge. In this sense, the collective unconscious can be seen as what bridges these two paths into a singular gateway that sets up for the individual a trajectory of self reliance.
This self reliance is echoed in the overarching passive structure of the entire mandala ritual. Individuals are invited, not forced, to observe the ceremony as it takes place over the course of a week. However, one gets the distinct impression that this performance is by no means reliant on the attendance of an outside audience, that the ritual remains an effective exercise regardless of who comes to see it. For the monks constructing the mandala, it works on the exclusive level of being an intense meditative practice which they pour an extreme amount of physical and mental energy into. Not only must they concentrate on the precise application of the sand, but they also must actively project themselves into the sacred space through meditative reflection. As mentioned before, the shear numerical breadth of the iconographic images contained within Tibetan Buddhist symbolism, as well as their philosophical and metaphorical significance, is staggering. That is why mediations upon the mandala are such consuming endeavors.
The very basic features of a Buddhist mandala are: an inner lotus or seat for the central deity, four portals (representing the four boundless thoughts: loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity) leading into the sacred palace of the deity, and an outer protective circle comprised of fire that symbolizes the metaphorical knowledge which “burns” ignorance. Meditation upon a mandala focuses on the process of visualization. Entering into the sacred space a monk sees himself as the main deity, which is considered not to be “god” or a separate entity, but as the manifestation of the self’s own natural wisdom8. A series of meditations, for which the monk has been prepared in advance to execute, help him to find the gods in his own heart and thus reveal the truth of his inward existence. In this vision, he sees them all emerge and spring from him; moving through the palace doors they fill cosmic space and are reabsorbed back into him as the deity. In other words, he “realizes” an eternal process of ongoing creation and destruction of both the phenomenal world and the inward world. Through contemplation he conceives the self to be a microcosm of the larger cosmic structure and thus shatters the conditioned plane of samsara and enters a transcendent plane of profound awareness9. Such a level of realization is not achieved in one sitting, but rather is cultivated throughout the entire process of the mandala’s construction. The ritual’s drawn out structure is designed to help harvest a sense of openness that allows time for the attainment of these complex understandings. The process, the mandala’s actual construction and the subsequent meditation, cannot be rushed because not a single element of the design is fortuitous. Everything has a symbolic meaning that the meditator must bear in mind. This process is not a mere daydream musing through an enchanting paradise disconnected from reality. It is the rediscovery of reality, seeing it as it is and realizing the unity of appearance and emptiness. This functions not to cut oneself off from others, but to generate boundless compassion for beings who have lost awareness of the Buddha nature within themselves10.
The inescapable truth found in all this, the ritual’s function, structure, intent, and larger implications, is that it places the importance of the self, its consciousness and perceptual intellect, above all forms of creed, doctrine, scripture, or any other system of institutionalized thought. Though this type of meditation leans heavily on long established philosophical and metaphysical concepts, the “hows” are not delineated for the individual. They are merely pointed in a suggested direction. The discovery as to how one gets to that ultimate goal, or truth, is entirely up to the self’s mind. This postulates that no truth can ever be discovered through means which subjugate the individual into a position of inferiority. Throughout theological history, religious leaders have assured the masses that if they perform certain dogmatic activities, conform to certain patterns, suppress their desires, control their thoughts, and quell their passions, they shall, after sufficient conformity of the mind and body, find a higher existence beyond the present reality. This search for something, call it truth, or God, or the eternal, that timeless state which cannot be disturbed by circumstance or thought, has been going on for the history of civilization. As a result hierarchical structures have been erected by those in authoritative positions, the function of which control, shape, and distort the mind by forcing it to assimilate. But such a tortured mind is a broken mind, one which has, through an endless submission to conforming thought, denied the connection between the outer and inner world. Such a mind, however long it seeks, will find only according to its own distortion.
This is that condition of samsara which Buddhist teaching describes as plaguing a very large segment of humanity. The concluding part of the sand mandala ritual, where the sand is released into the water to effectively be dispersed throughout the world, can plainly be identified as an overt attempt at rectifying this problem of suffering. The fact that the ritual is structured to conclude with this procedure asserts a certain level of certitude, that it is indeed a successful strategy. This brings back the whole concept of the collective unconscious because it is deeply rooted in the notion that the mandala contains a universally transferable energy. Carl Jung, in dealing with countless patients whose imaginations produced motifs and symbols consistently resembling that of the mandala, came to the conclusion that they were the psychological expression of the totality of the self. The basic motif is an intuitive representation of the center of personality. A central point within the psyche from which everything is related, by which everything is arranged, and which itself is a source of energy11. The energy of the central point produces an inner order; its symmetry is the visual manifestation of an overwhelming urge to become what one is as well as the universal externalization of the unconscious. If this is in fact the case, that there is a “transconscious”12 disposition in all individuals which is able to produce the same or very similar symbols resembling the mandala at all times and in all places, then the profoundness of the Buddhist monks’ execution of the ritual worldwide is indeed overwhelming. Its effect is a transcendent one, an unprecedented symbolic gesture that serves to bring infinite light to the hearts and minds of all individuals inhabiting Earth.
“To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.” These words from J. Krishnamurti will truly resonate as long as we inhabit this planet. He believed that the traditional approach to this discovery, working from the periphery inwards to gradually arrive upon the inner self, was inherently flawed. It’s characterized by types of mechanical seeking which rely too heavily on the experiences and promises of others. He believed that understanding, or wholeness, could only be achieved from the inward out, that the only source of true knowledge emanated from the self. The sand mandala ritual, as performed by Tibetan Buddhists, can be understood as a physical practice in which this approach is carried out; a way to come to this realization that the microcosm and the macrocosm are fundamentally same and finding no contradiction in that fact. For what is being dealt with here is essentially a sacred principle, or rather a sacred state of consciousness, in which all beings and all things are realized equally as emanations of one divine whole. The mandala is a structural model for this sacred consciousness, and confirms the Hermetic statement, “God is an intelligent sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”13
