Sri Yantra, Feng Shui life & Astrology

Buddhist Mandalas

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Mandalas, ancient symbols of prayer and meditation used by many religious groups, can be small or large, simple or ornate, made with colored crayons or finely crushed stone.

There is almost complete artistic freedom in creating mandalas, the only requirement being that they are circular in shape, said Sister Sharon Havelak, a Sylvania Franciscan nun who leads mandala workshops at the Sylvania campus, 6832 Convent Blvd., including one on Thursday.

The word ‘mandala’ is Sanskrit for ‘circle,’ and the symbols have been around for thousands of years. Mandalas originated among the Hindus but are widely used as meditation and prayer tools by Buddhists.

In recent years, mandalas are becoming increasingly popular in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Buddhist monks are known for creating intricate mandalas out of colored sand. According to tantric practice, Buddhists consider mandalas to be ’sacred abodes of meditation deities, and as such are expression of enlightened qualities of mind such as compassion and wisdom,’ author Don Farber wrote in Tibetan Buddhist Life.

A wealth of meaning can be found in mandalas, including symbols of celestial circles, the cosmos, and the structure of life itself as seen by humanity looking at the universe.

Printable Mandala Posters

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Sand Mandala Formation

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Grain of sand by grain of sand, the white marble court of UVM’s Fleming Museum has gotten a lot more colorful. Two Tibetan Buddhist monks from an Ithaca, New York monastery are here painting with sand.

Monk Tenzin Thutop explains, “We Tibetans are keeping this tradition in order to live a peaceful life, a compassionate life.”

With steady hands and funnels to fill in guidelines they drew beforehand, the monks are making a mandala: a sacred circle meant to focus the attention of Buddhists. It is exacting work, meditative for both the monks and their admirers.

Printable Mandala Posters

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buddhist -religious -symbols

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A traveling exhibit of relics Buddhists consider holy will open in Kissimmee today and in Orlando next week, featuring objects that believers say embody the wisdom and compassion of the masters — some of whom lived more than 2,000 years ago.

“People report feelings of peace and a feeling of blessing when viewing them,” said Carmen Straight, the custodian in charge of the exhibit.

The Maitreya Project Heart Shrine Relic Tour has made stops in Los Angeles and San Francisco and will head to Atlanta and New Orleans later this year.

The exhibit includes a piece of the tooth of the historical Buddha, who was born in Nepal about 2,500 years ago, Straight said. She said that it has been authenticated by other masters in the Buddhist tradition.

But to confirm such claims using the methods of today’s historians would be hard, said Mario Poceski, associate professor of religion at the University of Florida and a former Buddhist monk.

Poceski said the relics are important to many Buddhists, but believers do not worship the objects.

“They are articles of faith,” Poceski said. “It inspires devotion and a connection with the wisdom and infinite compassion of the Buddha.”

Those visiting the exhibits should try to feel the positive energy of the atmosphere, said Venerable Thich Nhat Tri, a monk at the Phap Vu Buddhist Cultural Center in Orlando.

The exhibit is free to the public, but donations are welcome. Organizers of the tour hope to raise money and awareness to build a holy shrine in India to house the relics. They came from many sources, including the Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

The tour is the inspiration of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition.

Printable Mandala Posters

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buddhism religious symbols

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

general academy of Tibetan Buddhism, the first of its kind in the southwestern autonomous region, began construction of the 80 million yuan (11.7 million U.S. dollars) facility on Saturday.

The Tibetan Buddhism Academy in Nyetang Town, Quxu County, covers an area of 17.4 hectares. Quxu is under the jurisdiction of the regional capital Lhasa.

Its total investment is all from the central government budget.
The first phase of construction will cost about 50 million yuan and is scheduled for completion in 2010. Its design includes a library and buildings for religious activities.

“This will be the first comprehensive and high-level Tibetan Buddhism academy in Tibet,” said Lobsang Gyaincain, head of the United Front Work Department of the Tibet committee of the Communist Party of China.

“The academy will contribute a lot to conducting Buddhist studies and exchanges with the outside world.”

The facility aims to train patriotic and devotional religious personnel who are widely recognized both in their religious accomplishments and moral character, he added.

In addition to religious theories, students will also be taught knowledge of other disciplines such as politics and sociology.

Printable Mandala Posters

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buddhist-ancient-mandalas

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

Through this beautiful art we call mandala, which is for peace and harmony, we hope there will be implanted a seed of peace and harmony in each student’s soul and heart,” he said. “In order to help other people in this world and to serve others, it’s very important to know outside cultures and traditions.”

Phentsok said the monks are from Drepung Loseling Monastery, a refugee monastery in India, and are traveling the U.S., Europe and South America on a tour called “The Mystical Arts of Tibet.” The tour was founded in 1989 by the branch monastery in Atlanta, Ga., he said, and this is the eleventh group to do the tour. The monks began traveling in February and will end their tour in June 2009.

The reason for the tour, Phentsok said, is to expose people to other cultures. And the children seemed to enjoy learning about the monks’ customs. The 1,300 kids sat quietly as they watched the monks perform the rituals Oct. 1, which included throat singing and playing instruments. Some of those instruments were a long-horn trumpet, which Phentsok said symbolizes the strength of the earth, and drums, which represent harmony of the elements.

Printable Mandala Posters

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angel-portal-mandala

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

Mandalas] used to be very private, you know,” Tenzin Thutop said. “Then His Holiness the Dalai Lama allowed for them to be made in public because there has been pressure to preserve Tibetan culture.”

“It is important to watch the process because this is the compassion mandala, and the architecture is based on the teaching of the Buddha himself in 600 B.C,” Thutop said.

Much of the interest in the mandala exhibit, along with an interest and dedication to Tibetan culture, stemmed from a lack of knowledge among some members of the crowd as to what the purpose of a mandala actually is.

“A mandala is a divine mansion. It is a residence of celestial beings, a palace. [We believe] some deities reside there,” Thutop said.

This particular mandala is the mandala of Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara), the Buddha of Great Compassion. Tenzin Thutop and Lobsang Tashi spent approximately four of their 13 years at the Namgyal Monastery in India learning the art of making mandalas.

Colored sand is poured through metal cones while the monk creates vibrations along the edges of the cone. Tibetan monks believe that the mandala will bring feelings of harmony and compassion to whatever space it is in.

Printable Mandala Posters

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amitabha-sand-mandala

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A Sand Mandala Dissolution Ceremony Considered one of the most is exquisite and unique artistic traditions in Buddhism, sand mandala painting is a painstaking process of applying colored sand to create a sacred cosmogram. During the dissolution ceremony, the mandala will be ritually dismantled and dispersed in a body of water, symbolizing the impermanence of life.

Printable Mandala Posters

www.sriyantras.com/mandala.html

abenaki-mandala

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

A Sand Mandala Dissolution Ceremony Considered one of the most is exquisite and unique artistic traditions in Buddhism, sand mandala painting is a painstaking process of applying colored sand to create a sacred cosmogram. During the dissolution ceremony, the mandala will be ritually dismantled and dispersed in a body of water, symbolizing the impermanence of life.

Printable Mandala Posters

www.sriyantras.com/mandala.html

buddhist-mandala

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

Mandala is a Sanskrit word used for a geometric design that symbolically represents the cosmos. A mandala’s design tries to focus outer thoughts on inner worlds.

Geometric linear form, part of a larger installation (and seen on the side wall in the photograph at the right), is a mandala.

Like mandala, swastika also comes from Sanskrit. This ancient symbol always had positive connotations of life and good luck — until Adolf Hitler, failed Austrian artist, wrote Vol. 2, Chapter VII of “Mein Kampf.” That’s where he described how he came up with his red, white and black graphic symbol of National Socialism. For him, and soon enough for everyone, the bent-arm black form signified “the struggle for the victory of Aryan mankind .

Printable Mandala Posters

www.sriyantras.com/mandala.html

blank-mandalas

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

From all the artistic traditions of Tantric Buddhism, painting with colored sand ranks as one of the most unique and exquisite. Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of days or weeks to form the image of a mandala. To date the monks have created mandala sand paintings in more than 100 museums, art centers, and colleges and universities in the United States and Europe.

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SECC Testimonial: UTSA staff member Shirley Rowe
Music by UTSA’s Matthew Dunne featured on NPR
UTSA Career Services hosts educator career fair
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Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning sacred cosmogram. These cosmograms can be created in various media, such as watercolor on canvas and wood carvings. However, the most spectacular and enduringly popular are those made from colored sand.

In general all mandalas have outer, inner and secret meanings. On the outer level, they represent the world in its divine form; on the inner level they represent a map by which the ordinary human mind is transformed into enlightened mind. On the secret level, they depict the primordially perfect balance of the subtle energies of the body and the clear light dimension of the mind. The creation of a sand painting is said to produce purification and healing on these three levels.

The mandala sand painting begins with an opening ceremony, during which the lamas consecrate the site and call forth the forces of goodness. This is done by means of chanting, music and mantra recitation, which will be at 11 a.m., Nov. 5 at UTSA.

The lamas begin the exhibit by drawing an outline of the mandala on the wooden platform. On the following days, they lay the colored sands. Each monk holds a traditional metal funnel called a chakpur, while running a metal rod on its grated surface. The vibration causes the sands to flow like liquid onto the platform.

Traditionally most sand mandalas are destroyed shortly after their completion. This is done as a metaphor for the impermanence of life. The sands are swept up and placed in an urn; to fulfill the function of healing, half is distributed to the audience at the closing ceremony, while the remainder is carried to a nearby body of water, where it is deposited. The waters then carry the healing blessing to the ocean, and from there it spreads throughout the world for planetary healing. The closing ceremony at UTSA will be at noon, Nov. 7.

Printable Mandala Posters

www.sriyantras.com/mandala.html

black-and-white-mandalas

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

The mandala sand painting begins with an opening ceremony, during which the lamas consecrate the site and call forth the forces of goodness. This is done by means of chanting, music and mantra recitation, which will be at 11 a.m., Nov. 5 at UTSA.

The lamas begin the exhibit by drawing an outline of the mandala on the wooden platform. On the following days, they lay the colored sands. Each monk holds a traditional metal funnel called a chakpur, while running a metal rod on its grated surface. The vibration causes the sands to flow like liquid onto the platform.

Traditionally most sand mandalas are destroyed shortly after their completion. This is done as a metaphor for the impermanence of life. The sands are swept up and placed in an urn; to fulfill the function of healing, half is distributed to the audience at the closing ceremony, while the remainder is carried to a nearby body of water, where it is deposited. The waters then carry the healing blessing to the ocean, and from there it spreads throughout the world for planetary healing. The closing ceremony at UTSA will be at noon, Nov. 7.

Printable Mandala Posters

www.sriyantras.com/mandala.html

printable-mandala

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

From all the artistic traditions of Tantric Buddhism, painting with colored sand ranks as one of the most unique and exquisite. Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of days or weeks to form the image of a mandala. To date the monks have created mandala sand paintings in more than 100 museums, art centers, and colleges and universities in the United States and Europe.

——————————————————————————–

Today’s headlines
SECC Testimonial: UTSA staff member Shirley Rowe
Music by UTSA’s Matthew Dunne featured on NPR
UTSA Career Services hosts educator career fair
UTSA hosts election night viewing party Nov. 4
Article tools
UTSA Today home
Printable format
E-mail this story
RSS Feeds
text size– | + | R
——————————————————————————–
Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning sacred cosmogram. These cosmograms can be created in various media, such as watercolor on canvas and wood carvings. However, the most spectacular and enduringly popular are those made from colored sand.

In general all mandalas have outer, inner and secret meanings. On the outer level, they represent the world in its divine form; on the inner level they represent a map by which the ordinary human mind is transformed into enlightened mind. On the secret level, they depict the primordially perfect balance of the subtle energies of the body and the clear light dimension of the mind. The creation of a sand painting is said to produce purification and healing on these three levels.

www.sriyantras.com/mandala.html

Printable Mandala Posters

www.sriyantras.com/mandala.html

sacred-hindu-symbols

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

Printable Mandala Posters

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sallyoldfield-mandala

Originally uploaded by unimaxis

Yantra is a Sanskrit word that is derived from the root yam meaning to control or subdue or “to restrain, curb, check” . Meanings for the noun derived from this root include:”any instrument or machine” (i.e. that which is controlled or controls. For instance the body is said to be a yantra “any instrument for holding, restraining, or fastening” (for instance a symbol which ‘holds’ the essence of a concept, or helps the mind to ‘fasten’ on a particular idea)
“a mystical or astronomical diagram” (usually a symbol, often inscribed on an amulet) sometimes said to possess mystical or magical powers.

Printable Mandala Posters

www.sriyantras.com/mandala.html