“Each person’s life is like a mandala- a vast, limitless circle.
We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life.
We enter a room, and the room is our mandala.
We get on the subway, and the subway car is our mandala, down to the teenager checking messages on her iPhone and the homeless man slumped in the corner.
We go for a hike in the mountains, and everything as far as we can see is our mandala: the clouds, the trees, the snow on the peeks, even the rattlesnake coiled in the corner.
We’re lying in a hospital bed, and the hospital is our mandala.
We don’t set it up,
we don’t get to choose what or who shows up in it.
we don’t get to choose what or who shows up in it.
It is, As Chogyam Trungpa said, ‘the mandala that is never arranged but is always complete.’
And we embrace it just as it is.
Everything that shows up in your mandala is a vehicle for your awakening.
From this point of view, awakening is right at your fingertips continually. There’s not a drop of rain or a pile of dog poop that appears in your life that isn’t the manifestation of enlightened energy, that isn’t a doorway to sacred world.
This is a very good post for me today. As we start our drive back to the house, I have the choice to make the next months be full of positive or negative comments and energy. It is within my own power to choose my attitude.
ReplyDeleteWhen we started building our house we were able to name our little road leading to it...I named it Mandala Lane...still love that name. I got it from the the book The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck..I always think of it as "full circle"...
ReplyDeleteThanks for this! I recently got to observe a group of Monks creating a sand mandala. It was fascinating. Also a collection of antique silk mandalas. (Some pics on my blog). Love Pema too!
ReplyDeleteLoved this one! I frequently create mandalas from magazines and other art supplies. It's amazing how many of the images I created have come true in my life!
ReplyDeleteVery neat blog. I had to look up what a mandala was and then I watched U-tube movie on how to make them as a form of self expression. Then to think of your entire life as a mandala. Wow!
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