Mandala

The word “mandala (“circle”, “completion”)” is from the classical Indian language of Sanskrit. Loosely translated to mean “circle,” a mandala is far more than a simple shape. It represents wholeness, and can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself–a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds. In Eastern spiritual traditions, mandala may be employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts, a spiritual teaching tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid to meditation. Its symbolic nature can help one “to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises.”

Mandala

In Hinduism – A Hindu temple’s ground floor plan often takes the form of a mandala symbolizing the universe. The lotus is sacred not only because it transcends the darkness of the water and mud where its roots are, but also because of its perfectly symmetrical petals, which resemble a mandala.

In Buddhism – A Buddhist mandala is envisaged as a “sacred space.” While on the one hand, it is regarded as a place separated and protected from the ever-changing and impure outer world of Samsara, the view of Vajrayana Buddhism sees the greatest protection from samsara being the power to see samsaric confusion as the “shadow” of purity. By visualizing purelands, one learns to understand experience itself as pure, and the abode of enlightenment. The protection we need, in this view, is from our own minds, as much as from external sources of confusion. In many tantric mandalas, this aspect of separation and protection from the outer samsaric world is depicted by “the four outer circles: the purifying fire of wisdom, the vajra circle, the circle with the eight tombs, the lotus circle.”