Dissolving the Mandala
a few thoughts on grief and loss
Apologies for the delay in sending this post out. I am currently in the midst of relocating from my longtime home of Singapore to India, so life has been intense. I will continue to write but my output may be more intermittent for a while, until I settle into a new place and routine. In the meantime, here are some recent thoughts inspired by what I’m going through.
order in chaos
As I go through the move, my mind has been returning to the Tibetan tradition of making and dissolving sand mandalas. Monks spend days or weeks creating intricate, sacred pieces of art, which are then destroyed ritually at the close of the ceremony (see here and here). The process is both profound and poignant—especially the moment of destruction, which has a special gravitas to it.
Mandalas are two-dimensional maps of three-dimensional palaces. They are meant to gather, harness and visually manifest a certain quality of energy—usually represented by a deity or divine pair—in a particular place and time. The point of the mandala is to invoke the power and blessing of the deity in this spot, here and now. But mandalas are also a way of looking at the world, and especially of bringing a sense of order to it. They remind us that there is a hidden pattern to everything, an overarching arrangement that we may not perceive amidst the busyness and chaos of life, but that emerges in times of transition and moments of intensity.
Our universe spirals around a core of space and energy (both physically and metaphysically). Everything radiates from that center, suspended in its gravity. Nothing exists that is not connected to the energetic heart of the world. And like the macrocosm, each individual also has a secret nucleus to their self and their life, around which everything they do and perceive circles.
The Sanskrit word mandala means:
circle or ring;
the path or orbit of a heavenly body;
the halo around the sun or moon;
anything round like a ball or a wheel, or
anything that gathers into a circular arrangement or grouping.
Tibetan sand mandalas are among the most complex forms of sacred circles, but these forms can be found in art from across cultures and times. The circle is an enduring symbol that evokes something profound within the human psyche, both when drawn and when seen. On the smallest level, it represents the original form that things take when they are born (like a single cell, or a seed). On the largest level, it is the shape that gathers and holds all things together within itself (like the edge of our galaxy, or the orbit of our planet). Within a circle, everything has its place, all things interrelate equally, and nothing is left out.
ritual dissolution
In between packing my boxes and giving away my things, I am reminded again and again that my home was a kind of mandala that I built over the years, and now I am dissolving it step-by-step, back into the space that holds everything. I recognize that my task is to bear witness to the many layers of my life as they each fall away: my house and the land I lived on, my work and all the people it connected me with, the shape and routine of my day, my friends, my family, my neighbours, and all the other beings I have related to here.
If you watch the dissolution of the mandala in the videos above, you’ll notice that there is a special way in which it is done. A certain order of movements closes the ritual space and ends the ceremony. With each sweep of the brush, the sand is moved from the periphery to the center. Eventually all the colours blend together and all that remains is a shapeless mound of sand in the middle of the space, which is subsequently dissolved in flowing water, or distributed to those who have witnessed the ceremony as a blessing. The sand is the remnant of the old form that has been dissolved, as well as the seed from which something new could be created. In this, the ritual perfectly mirrors nature’s way of turning decaying forms into new ones.
When I get overwhelmed, and I’m able to step back and take a time-out, I realise that there is a hidden order to the way that everything—including destruction—unfolds. It is when I fight against that order that things become too much. When I can cooperate with the way things want to dissolve, I find both peace and energy returning to me. This came to me in the simplest of ways, for example, when I had the idea to pack one bag at a time, in reverse order of when I’d need them: the ‘furthest’ away from me temporally first, moving closer to me in time as I went on. It was reinforced again as I went through the rooms of my house, choosing what to keep and what to discard; I instinctively began with the outermost rooms and ended with my bedroom, as if I was circling the center of the mandala-palace, the locus of energy at the heart of my space.
I found myself reflecting on this yet again as I spent the past week ‘closing’ each connection I’ve made here: returning keys and documents to various workplaces, having final meetings with friends, visiting places that I want to see before I go etc. Each of these beings and places formed a certain part of my life mandala; I am now circling through it and letting them go one at a time, in an order that feels simultaneously spontaneous and destined. With each passing moment, presence turns into memory, form into formlessness.
No one has embodied this principle to me more clearly than my cat, who passed away recently (photo below). In the week leading up to his death, I sat with him for numerous hours, attending to his presence, feeling his spirit, supporting his body. Each time I was with him, I could feel the flow of life into death, following its own innate rhythm and timing. There were times when his spirit seemed to be waiting between the realms—for what, I cannot say. But I had a strong, intuitive feeling that he needed to go in his own way, at his own pace; and that our work was to witness and support the movement of life force in its onward journey. That week was an ongoing dance of responsiveness to his immediate needs, while surrendering to the mystery that is Life and Death. In the end, he passed on peacefully on the night of the full moon; or as I have taken to saying, the moon called him home.
flowing in and out
Mandalas are usually drawn from the center outwards, and both visualised and destroyed from the periphery inwards. One way I’m perceiving this right now is that the dissolution of my life in Singapore is taking me back and in, to the core of who I am; and the life I build in India will radiate out from that central place, one layer at a time. Remembering this has been a beautiful way to discover what my intentions are around how I want to live and who I want to be in the next chapter of my life.
Another kind of mandala-flow has emerged in my relationship to the grief of dissolving my life here. Sometimes my grief feels gnarly and twisted, like a knot in the bark of an old tree. Other times it is sharp and clear as an arrow. Most times it is heavy in my heart, a pulsing darkness in my belly. I resist the temptation to do anything with it, to make it other than what it is, because grief is part of life—a necessary and sacred part, to show us what we value, what is precious and beloved to us. Grief is love, inverted.
When I feel sadness at what I’m losing, and I’m able to take a breath and be with it, I let my attention travel into the heart of that pain and rest there. Somehow, after some time, it spontaneously turns around and flows outwards again: as gratitude, love, appreciation, joy… Over and over I retrace this inner journey, in the process witnessing and creating a new form, fresh energy, out of the ashes of the old.
Always, behind the curtain of darkness, I am aware of the richness of life, of what a gift it is to be alive and to feel and perceive this world. And I know that emptiness and loss are bound up with fullness and gain, in ways that are mysterious and beyond understanding.
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I’d like to leave you with some other examples of mandalas that I have come across and been moved by. Let me know in the comments if you have your own favourite mandalas or circles somewhere in the world.
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" Remembering this has been a beautiful way to discover what my intentions are around how I want to live and who I want to be in the next chapter of my life...."
I love how you embody what a mandala means in the context of your life journey.
Love the way you describe your loss (cat), the new direction of moving back to india.