The Mandala

February 2010

By Michael Wilson

Recently I had a realization of how important it is to maintain a connection with a local community. I was in need of experiencing something which would reconnect me with my community here in Victoria, and found the opportunity thanks to a group of five traveling Tibetan monks, to whom my father had agreed to lend our James Bay home for the month of October. The Tibetan monks stayed in our cozy three-bedroom house while they constructed a sand mandala of Avalokiteshvara at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Although neither my father nor I lived with the Tibetan monks while they stayed at our home, I would often walk past the house in curiosity and occasionally witness one of the monks in my father's backyard.  The monk would be standing stoically amongst my father's rather overgrown garden, cloaked in red and saffron robes, watching the unkempt plants and trees as if contemplating the perfection of their simplicity. The monk would seem to be completely content in the environment so familiar to me, content with the things that I have taken for granted. I could tell that this monk was able to enjoy something that I could not, my perception of its beauty dulled from the habitual use of more glamorous things in life. The monk reminded me of a heron standing on the shallow skim of ocean shore, watching the movement of sea life below, waiting patiently for the moment to make a much anticipated move. However, these monks would not make any sharp movement as every action of theirs was so gradual, methodical and deliberate. 

I visited the monks once while the mandala was in the process of being constructed at the Art Gallery and once again recently while the mandela was being dismantled. Every detail of the mandala's construction had a symbolic meaning for the Tibetan Buddhist monks, originating from the Tantric teachings of Lord Buddha of Mahayana Buddhism. A mandala is considered to be a visual prayer and is a representation of the entire universe as well as the mind and body of the Buddha. The mandala of Avalokiteshvara is a specific mandala representing the divine mansion, in which resides the enlightened deity who embodies compassion. Avalokiteshvara means in Sanskrit, "lord who gazes down at the world" and is personified standing in the middle of a lotus flower at the centre of the mandala. The lotus flower symbolises the lotus family, one of the five Buddha families that are believed to represent the five components of the human being, and act to purify specific impure states of the mind. The lotus family is believed to distil compassion out of the awareness of discrimination. The mandala consists of a circle approximately three metres in diameter encasing a symmetrical walled palace, with a gateway at each of the four walls facing one of the four cardinal points of the compass.   The four outer walls are depicted with five colours: white, yellow, red, green, and blue. The five colours represent faith, effort, memory, meditation, and wisdom.  The four gateways at the centre of each of the four walls represent the Four Immeasurable Thoughts, taught in Tibetan Buddhism as love, compassion, joy, and tranquility. 

Each morning the monks performed a chanting meditation before beginning their daily work on the construction of the sand mandala.  Sitting cross-legged in a circle encompassing the mandala, all the monks would sit patiently in silent concentration. Gently one voice would be heard, resonating deeply from within the centre of the crowded room of onlookers. One by one, all five monks would gradually join in the chant, their voices rising to a bellowing harmony of various tones. The chanting filled the entire room, everyone united in its sacred tune in peaceful meditation. A bronze symbol crashed and bells would ring in synchronization, mildly awaking the crowd from their trance-like state. One by one, the voices would become silent until the last breath of an alto voice would cease, signifying the end of chant and the meditation. 

Once the meditation was over, the monks would begin their diligent task of arranging coloured grains of sand across the vast area of stage meant to contain the completed mandala. Only the clanking sound of metal utensils could be heard over the friendly discussions of newly united spectators, as the monks began to arrange miniscule streams of siphoned sand into complex geometric patterns, grain by grain. Historically, the mandala would not have been created with dyed sand, but with colourful granules of crushed semi-precious stone.  However, plain white sand is now usually dyed with opaque inks to achieve the same effect at a greatly reduced cost. The monks are well prepared to dedicate weeks and hundreds of hours towards completing the mandala. Tibetan art is almost exclusively devoted to the service of Buddhism and is almost never practiced for the sake of creativity or personal expression.

My most profound experience with the Tibetan monks was at the final stage of the mandala's life cycle when the sand mandala was dismantled. The ritual began much like the meditative chanting performed every morning. However, it concluded with a walking meditation with the monks moving clockwise around the completed mandala. Two of the monks walked together holding trumpets, on which they played in harmony with the chant. The Tibetan monks all wore yellow headdresses that resembled the frilled decoration of a Trojan warrior's helmet. After the ceremony, all the monks took turns brushing the sand from the edges of the mandala towards its centre, in careful symmetry. A sand mandala is always ritualistically destroyed once it has been completed, symbolizing the Buddhist doctrinal belief in the temporary nature of life, and the renouncement of material possessions. All the coloured sand from the mandala was then thoughtfully swept into a glass vessel, transported to Cattle Point on the coast of Oak Bay, and dispersed into the ocean to be carried by shifting currents throughout the world, symbolizing the spreading of compassion and peace on earth.

I thank the Tibetan monks for sharing their cultural beliefs and traditions brought from Ganden Jangtse Monestary in Northern India, as well as for creating within my own community a deeper feeling of connection. I also thank the Tibetan monks for sharing with the entire world a grain of sand along with compassion and understanding, so that we may establish with our more worldly community a closer connection, and possibly a bit of peace in doing so.