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The
mandala, stripped of all its aesthetics and symbolism, remains
no more and no less than a pattern frozen in time. We can see
much in this pattern, we can see centrality, dualism, holism,
order and chaos, peace and upheaval-- whatever is within us we
will find in the fabric of the mandala. And yet, even beneath
this most essential universality, at the core remains ever the
pattern. It is a community of points, of particles, set into
a specific arrangement. So also is the entire Universe, as subatomic
particles come together to form everything that we can see and
everything we can imagine. From the most distant stars to the
thoughts within your mind, everything that exists is only particles
and energy set to an ever-changing pattern. To say that the same
is true of the mandala is not to be symbolistic at all-- it is
an absolute, literal truth. The patterns of the Universe and
the mandala may differ in scale, but they share the same infinite
potential. And even the difference in scale between the two could
well be an illusion of our own limited, relativistic viewpoint.
The intricate
pattern of the Universe reveals order and chaos in the same breath.
There is a definite order in the relationships between the countless
particles that comprise it, but it is an order of such unimaginable
complexity that to any but a vast, universal mind it would seem
sheer chaos. The mandala transforms this infinite macrocosm into
a micrososm of captivating detail and beauty. It captures an
instant of the Universe's infinite flux, a sliver of existence
that would otherwise have slipped by utterly unnoticed. It is
both our privilege and our duty to appreciate this wondrous act,
to study the mandala and to meditate upon its essential truth.
It is a mirror, both of the Universe without and of the self
within.
Just as the many particles of the mandala, though varied and numerous they may be, are part of a single, cohesive pattern, so is every particle in the Universe interconnected and interdependant. And among the myriad particles are the bits of matter and energy that make up each one of us. The Hindu concept of "maya" refers to the belief that all observed phenomena are illusion, and Taoism tells us that the naming of things separated them from the unified wholeness of reality. Both reflect this concept of an underlying and largely unperceived universal continuity. We are not islands in the ocean of night, but rather integral parts in a wide-reaching tapestry of cosmic scope.
The fact that, to all appearances, we are each of us isolated and unique, is indeed an illusion stemming from an ancient evolutionary need to be highly aware of our surroundings. Our survival demanded, and achieved, this analytical speciality. Unfortunately, such refined development of our reductionist left brain came largely at the expense of the holistic awareness of the right brain. We sacrificed much of our big-picture awareness for the ability to focus and discern. So in the end, our eyes and brain distinguish between the elements of the Universe in a very practical, albeit biased, manner. If we were to discard the visual information inherent in all the light around us, we would clear away the illusion that the elements of the Universe are distinct and isolated, We would have woken from the dream of maya, and realized what the Hindu calls Brahmin-- the true wholeness of existence. We would realize that the particles in our bodies are in contact with the particles of the earth, the water, the trees, the sky, of the clouds drifting through space, of the stars and the galaxies-- it is all a vast, universal soup, every particle intimately connected to everything else.
And
if there is no real separation, no distinction between one elementary
particle and the next, then there can not really exist a you,
a me, a him or a her as discrete entities. We are simply different
areas of a never-ending mass of electrons and quarks. Within
that vast mass, each of our "areas of influence," our
conscious minds, exhibit a unique pattern of energy interaction,
a personality. But this is just the same as the mass of the Earth
exhibiting billions of localized geoligical patterns. We should
not consider our minds isolated from the universal awareness
any more than we consider the Italian Alps isolated from the
European land mass, or the continent of North America isolated
from the planet's crust.
And
so we return to the mandala, where the pattern is the Universe,
the central point is the mind, and the interdependence of the
two is obvious. Just as obvious, also, should be the realization
that this distinction between the bindu and the mandala, and
between the mind and the universe, is an utter illusion. All
is one in the beautifully intricate tapestry of reality. This
essential wholeness is an elementary feature of the Universe
that should translate itself into the way that we think and act.
So many, if not all, of our struggles as a species are simply
based on the instinctive, undeniable urge to enforce the ego,
the self. True enlightenment is to realize that the self is a
fallacy, that we are all just trying to swim against the cosmic
current. It is not only futile, it is pointless-- we are engaging
in battles where the victories are ephemeral, and the spoils
meaningless.
The
pattern of the Universe, of the mandala, is all the truth there
is. It tells us that we belong to the whole, to each other, to
ourselves. We are All, we are One. No other truth is necessary.
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(Material copyright
2003, all rights reserved. No portion of this text
may be used or reproduced without the express written consent
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