Awareness of impermanence and appreciation of our human potential will give us a sense of urgency that we must use every precious moment. –Dalai Lama
It took nine days for two monks to create a sand mandala, in honor of His Holiness XIV Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday. My friend Karin and I were fortunate enough to watch those artisans at work, and to share tea and conversation with them a few weeks back.*
Earlier this week, the Center for Living Peace provided a short video clip of the private dissolution ceremony.
https://instagram.com/p/5vC-qDvfVp/
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<a href="https://instagram.com/p/5vC-qDvfVp/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_top">"Impermanence" was truly the word of the day. • • • After spending 9 days of tireless work creating the Sand Mandala in honor of @dalailama's 80th birthday, the monks dissolved it this morning. Such a beautiful display of #impermanence @ucirvine</a>
A video posted by Center for Living Peace (@occlp) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2015-07-29T21:26:49+00:00">Jul 29, 2015 at 2:26pm PDT</time>
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(For still images of a dissolution ceremony, click here and scroll down. A more detailed video is available at this link.)
In witnessing these ancient Tibetan Buddhist traditions, I am reminded of the simple joys available to us in each moment. Beauty. Unity. The healing balm of sacred rituals. Too, in watching the attentiveness with which the monks go about their tasks–the physical endurance and mental discipline required to create and then dismantle the sand mandala–I see illustrated the concepts of detachment and impermanence.
The metaphor is deep and wide, with a special resonance for each of us. I’m appreciating it anew this morning, as a memoirist whose book is currently out on submission to publishers.
When we contribute our stories to the collective, we spare them from the dustbin of history, albeit temporarily. Pages crumble; interests wax and wane. So we aim for the transcendent, more so than permanence. We stay in the room with story, despite any temporary discomfort. In writing about past events, we remain fully present. And we try to remember that who we are– in this moment; in light of our experiences, and despite them–is the heartbeat of our memoir.
*Oh my goodness, I’m remembering now that I teased a second blog entry about that! I’ll post it next week, I promise!
I love how you explore the notion of impermanence and how we strive to capture that on the page… thereby making it permanent. Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you, Oritte, for stopping by to read and comment! I suspect we all have different takeaways, but this made sense in the context of who I am, as a writer.
Is it like a pizza cutter? The thing he’s running over it? And THEN what do they do with the sand?
It is called a vajra…if you visit the link to the original post (first paragraph), you can see it pictured there. Using the pointed edge, the monk goes from corner to corner, edge to edge in a specific pattern, to break up the design. Then the sand is swept toward the middle. Participants are given vials of sand to take home with them, and the remainder is returned to the ocean, its place of origin, as a blessing to all beings. Hope this helps clarify the process. I’ve never seen it firsthand, so I’m relying on these videos, plus personal interviews with the monks that built the sand mandala for the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday.
And we are are like that instant in time
Yes, absolutely. Good morning, Linda! And thank you for sharing this moment in time with me.