I have written about impermanence before; it’s a large part of the yoga practice, after all. Yoga Sutra 2.5 says, Ignorance Is Taking The Non-Eternal, The Impure, The Painful, The Non-Self, As The Eternal, The Pure, The Pleasurable And The Self. Believing that anything of this world is permanent, this says, is both the definition of ignorance and the source of great suffering. However, understanding this on an intellectual level is perhaps an easier undertaking than an emotional one. Observing the flux of life in nature, for example, is far easier than observing it on our own faces, in the lives of our children, or in the status we so want to cling to.
I don’t wish to rehash impermanence, though. It’s mandalas I am thinking of today. Mandala means “sacred circle.” In many cultures, the circle represents the divine and healing. The circle, without edges, without beginning or end, depicts flow. Mandalas have been used throughout the ages to cultivate healing in some cultures and meditation or inward focus in other cultures. Carl Jung used mandala drawing as part of his personal exploration of self and as part of the therapy he used with clients. In many cultures, once the mandala is created, it is destroyed, leaving not a trace of the work behind. For example, in Aboriginal cultures, medicine men would often lie an afflicted person on the ground in a circle drawing. Once their rituals of healing were finished, the circle drawing was wiped away completely, symbolizing the elimination of the affliction. And Buddhist Monks spend days, sometimes weeks, creating intricate 5’x5′ mandalas with millions of grains of sand only to wipe away every bit of sand after finishing the creation and praying over it.
It’s these monks I’ve been thinking of. I imagine the quiet, slow precision that allows them to create the intricate symbolic patterns of the mandalas. The geometric designs are perfectly balanced, with each half of the circle mirrored in the other half. The monks place one grain of sand at a time. Often many monks, many hours, many days, go into the work of the mandala. However, in the end there are no pictures snapped to capture what has been created and transmit to social media. There is no spray glue and a frame to proudly display the work on a wall. There is just the creation, the prayers, and then the release of it all. To me, this is the ultimate display of embodying the emotional aspect of impermanence.
At the heart of what I work to create is the desire to put something beautiful in the world. Yet, when the beauty fades, when the creation is destroyed, does that make it meaningless? I do not think so, though I also have to remind myself of this a lot, because when it seems beautiful, I want to cling. I want to take the picture, keep it just as it is, never let it go. And when there is instead struggle, when things are difficult, I want to push it away. Instead, I am working on something a little different these days. I am working on creating the sacred circle and then erasing it to start each day from zero. In this way, I am practicing coming to my mat in the morning as if that is the first grain of sand I am laying for that day. I am working to be so present with that “grain” that I do not miss the way it feels as I put my feet on the mat or how it feels to extend my spine or to work with my breath. Starting my day from this place, I work to make each moment of the day another grain of sand, and so create with slow precision the sacred of that particular day. And after I’ve finished, I work to intentionally and precisely erase it all so that the next day can be the circle it needs to be–and so that I can be present to discover what that is.
That presence for the discovery of what unfolds is the key, I believe. In my physical and breath practice on the mat, in my emotional practice in life, I often either crave for something to be exactly the way it once was or strive anxiously to make something the opposite of what it’s been. In both of those states, I am not present to discover what is real or to learn to flow in a way that keeps me from struggling. This struggle then creates suffering rather than the perfectly balanced, precisely designed beauty of a mandala.
I try to imagine these mandala grains of my daily life much like those the Buddhist Monks use–in the end some of them are swept back to the ground, others are placed in the ocean to be sent out as prayers, blessings for others. And I am working to see what I create as perfect and beautiful not in spite of its impermanence but because of its impermanence. It is not grim to know that all is always in a state of change. There is a great beauty in knowing that we get to experience each day as an empty circle and that there before us is the opportunity to place one precious grain of sand at a time. In that way, I do not have to cling to some expectation of what my body can or can not do, just as I don’t have to cling to a story about how I treat myself or how I react in a situation. I can instead look for the way in to creating something beautiful in that moment, slow down and place myself in a balanced way, and then let go to start again. And again…