Mandalas

ThailandTom

This is taken from The Dalai Lamas Book Of Awakenin, my favourite buddhist Book I have at the moment and it has just started to fall apart literally in this moment. Attachtment, yes. Anyway he says this, "Although my own practice is very poor, very poor indeed, and although I recite mantras and visualize certain manadals, even so the main empthasis of my daily practice is the four noble truths and bodhichitta. These two practices I feel are of real practical benefit."

I do not know what a mandala is, I guess a deity, but is it confined to Tibetan Buddhism? Anybody here visualize mandals or something of that nature? It is interesting that he suggests that his own practice is very poor.

shays860

http://www.exoticindiaart.com/artimages/ze25.jpg

That's a mandala. I've never used one. You bringing it up kind of makes me want to look more into it though. I don't really know how they're supposed to be used.

ThailandTom

No nor do I. What makes me more curious is how the Dalai Lama considers his practice poor lol. Even in the quote I pulled from the book, even in that he has a vastly trained and strict practice than myself. But hey, why compare when we all have to deal with our own path. Thanks for the link by the way.

Jeffrey

It's a teaching relating to non-self. So say you have your life. All the interconnectedness you have with every facet of your life makes a radiant pulsating jeweled mandala. The emotionality or samaya flows to those parts of your life.

There are other mandalas such as NB is a mandala.

Mandalas are empty but when you step into one you get signals of how to behave. That too is the samaya.

There is a lot of emotionality when you are on the fence.

There are mandala guardians and people trying to subvert the mandala.

There are mandala messengers who approach you. Ego mandala, practice mandala, awakening mandala.

Advertisements are samaya and messengers of commercial entities for example



And then there are also artworks which are designs radiating from a center. I have heard they make very beautiful mandalas out of sand which they then disperse the design to show the impermanence.

ThailandTom

And then there are also artworks which are designs radiating from a center. I have heard they make very beautiful mandalas out of sand which they then disperse the design to show the impermanence.

^^^ This is beautiful as a concept. Hey Jeffrey, I have a favour to ask of you. Would you mind briefly asking your lama about mandals when you next go and speak to her if that is okay? Seeing as it is most likely related to Tibetan buddhism from what I can gather.

Jeffrey

It's already happened Lama Shenpen answered a question of mine in an e-mail..

Dear Jeff

This is an important question. Are we talking of a universe that is just our sense impressions, perceptions and thoughts or is there something more to it. I would say the is immensely more to it and mandala principle is a way of talking about it. The good thing about its being a principle is that we understand that it is not a ‘thing’ – it cannot be grasped but it can be understood. Karma works on the basis of mandala principle – so yes there is something alive and structured there that exists in its own right and which we are sensing and perceiving each in our own way. Do you remember all this stuff from Trusting the Heart of Buddhism………maybe its worth going back to that to revise it.

See comments below

Lama Shenpen,

I was listening to part of your talk recently about how the mandalas are empty which we can engage with because we are empty. There is a kind of play of energy which cannot be predicted as the mandala expresses itself and through us.

I was thinking of a question of philosophy. If two people look at a mandala and they see it differently. That is they are not agreeing about either the values at the center or they don't agree how the pattern is radiating from the mandala. The second would probably imply a difference in the first. Couldn't these just be natural differences in view? I mean how could two people ever have the same view?

People will always have their own perceptions and be viewing things from a unique point of view but there are mandala structures involved and if our perceptions are out of kilta with how the mandala connections actually are……….then we end up dysfunctional within that mandala.

But does that mean that there is a 'real' mandala there?

Yes…………what ‘real’ means here needs careful thought. ‘Real’ is used in many senses……………real as opposed to what? Is a rainbow real? Do we really see a rainbow? It is real to the extent that when people look from a certain angle they can see it. It is conditioned, transient, contingent, dependently arising, relative……………………but there is a difference between there being a rainbow or there not being a rainbow……….it is not just a matter of a person imagining it.

That neither one knows for certain?



Essentially is mandala principle just a frame to understand things?

Well it is a frame for understanding things but its also a working principle……..you can spot how the way things manifest conforms to all the mandala principles that operate in a mandala – every form of manifestation manifests in conformity with mandala principle………..you could use examples to show the principles…………anything you could think of could be used as an example to demonstrate the principles.

Like the sun rises in the east as you have said with karma.

That demonstrates the principle of relativity……..relative to the observer, the sun rises in the east.

Because if its just an idea of energy expressing itself from mandalas where nobody has any idea what is at the center....

Well everyone has a sense of the centre and the central principle or they wouldn’t be able to operate within that mandala………..but they might be trying to work against it either deliberately or out of confusion.

wouldn't the utility of such a view be decided from the experience of each person?



I am not sure what the question is

I don't know if utility is the right word but there would be no reason to take the view unless it were somehow constructive towards releasing suffering.

You don’t have to have the view that you are operating within the constraints of mandala principle. If you do take that view you might find that actually it helps you orientate yourself better to what is going on. Whatever you do you will be working with the mandala principles whether you are awarea of it or not. It is like gravity. You can have no idea of gravity but if you drop things and they hit the ground they will break. You don’t have to understand why that is (its quite complex I believe and involves a number of principles). You could just notice that is what tends to happen and so you respect that without ever thinking about gravity. But if you then want to go on to understand the world better and someone says its like gravity………..well then that is when you find it useful to understand the principle of gravity. Mandala Principle is very useful for understanding the path to liberation from suffering because you can use it to talk about all areas of your experience – not just the physical or the mental but what goes beyond either……….what goes beyond birth and death………….so it’s a very very useful principle to be aware of.

I think I understand this a little, but I don't understand how the mandala principle is different from just experiencing a world that has sort of a 'cause and effect' science to it.

‘Science’? Cause and effect is not science – it’s a very coarse way of understanding that goes with all sorts of other coarse ideas. In terms of karma how can what I do to someone here in this world be the cause of what happens to someone in another world – in my next life…………this is not science at all. Still it’s a good way to think about things in a coarse way………..from my point of view right now that is a functional way of thinking of it.

Like not really breaking things down into mandalas with centers,

Nothing manifests except from some central principle…………how else could it manifest? You don’t have to break things down into centres. You just navigate yourself along in life and from time to time notice overlapping mandalas with different centres………….it is working anyway…………..you don’t have to break anything down in order to understand that

but just sort of a sprawling glob with manifestations.

It would be overlapping mandalas

It seems like the mandala principle is a way to understand whats really going on breaking the experience into a sensitivity.

Sensitivity in the sense that it is our sensitivity that allows us to orientate ourselves in response to the dynamic of the mandalas we find ourselves in.

Open in 1 other location Deta

Jeffrey

For example if I say a football team is a mandala my notion of that mandala would be due to my sensitivity to that situation.

Your experience of the mandala would be due to your situation. When you are ‘in the zone’ so to speak its because you are not thinking about it………you are just in it………just moving within the mandala of the game in a completely integrated way………………the mandala principles work by themselves and you don’t have to think about them.

But all of the facts that I know about the mandala (perceptions, feelings, imaginings) could be totally wrong.

If you are ‘in the zone’ you would find that the mandala was working so well that you wouldn’t care about the facts of the situation. There would be facts such as the right speed needed to get to a certain point at a certain time………….but you wouldn’t ‘know’ that as a fact…………you would just be able to be exactly at the right point at the right time because you had orientated yourself within the mandala in such a way that it all took care of itself without needing to know all the facts.

So how does the mandala operate... sort of as I think of it 'the real mandala' operate with participants who are mistaken?

Well on the one hand its amazing that it ever does……….and on the other hand well………it doesn’t always work does it……………mandalas break up and become dysfunctional or people become disfuntional within a mandala and find themselves being ejected……….so you never get away from mandala principle. It is not a matter of fairness………..its a matter of principle…….

Well I think I have asked a question perhaps on whether there are 'real' or just feelings/impressions of mandalas.

Hope this helps



Shenpen

ThailandTom

Thank you so much for these posts jeffrey, I think I have gotten more than I expected I will need to maybe save it and re-read it a few times because some of it really is not going in. That is not your fault, that is down to my sheer lack of understanding of the dharma and effort in getting my ass on the damn cushion lol. But cheers :thumbup: