| TIBETAN 
              ART  Page 10 
              
              Although we most often see a mandala in two dimensions, painted 
              on a wall or thangka or created on a floor or flat surface, it is 
              meant to be visualized as a three-dimensional structure, for which 
              it is effectively a blueprint.
 Mandalas 
              are sometimes, although more rarely, created three-dimensionally, 
              sometimes in bronze. The great stupa of Borobodur in Indonesia is 
              a gigantic stone mandala. (The origins of the stupa have been linked 
              to ancient cultures, such as the Mesopotamian Ziggurat, also a cosmogram 
              of the universe, layered into a certain number of terraces with 
              astrological correspondence.) Because of the ancient correlation 
              of the royal and the sacred, of the king endowed with priestly functions, 
              and of gods in royal capacities (e.g., Zeus/Jupiter or Indra), the 
              mandala is thought of as both palace and temple, or even as a royal 
              city, or, in two-dimensional form, as the blueprint for such a palace 
              or temple. Indeed, Shakyamuni is termed Chakravartin, the Universal 
              Monarch. In the center of the mandala, the deity sits in splendor 
              upon a throne, surrounded by supporting divinities, like an earthly 
              king surrounded by his court, in princely dress and ornaments. That 
              a mandala should be thought of as a blueprint is more than an abstract 
              conceit, since liberation is not given by grace, but must be achieved 
              by concentrated effort, by action both mental and spiritual. The 
              participant makes his or her way by a gradation of steps into and 
              through the palace/temple to the presiding deity at the center.
  
              Just as there are deities almost without number, there is a profusion 
              of mandalas, although each conforms to the basic format of symmetry 
              and concentricity. Again, this is not because artists wished to 
              outdo each other in devising and designing new patterns of the form. 
              Rather, each of the five Buddha "families" (the Dhyani-Buddhas) 
              has its own special mandala, as does the presiding deity, and there 
              are other mandalas for the other gods in their multiple manifestations 
              and emanations. Various mandalas are appropriate to particular persons, 
              to the spiritual condition the adherent wishes to achieve, or to 
              the particular obstruction that he/she wishes to overcome -- not 
              by repression but through transfiguration -- such as passion, anger, 
              greed, etc. A neophyte must undergo a tantric initiation during 
              which, with the help of a guru, the person's Buddha family is determined, 
              and a mandala is chosen that corresponds to that family.
  
              Thus we approach the function and the practice of the mandala. Its 
              meaning returns us to yoga, and the tantrist philosophy that underlies 
              Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism. The mandala is a yogic painting, 
              and the goal of yoga is union with the supreme essence, the One, 
              the All, the Absolute. And the object of the Buddhist practitioner 
              is to become one with the god of the mandala, the deity at its center. 
              If successful, this is the power conferred by the mandala: transformation 
              into the divine being and thus sublimation into the spiritual state 
              of which that deity is the symbol. 
 In a further layer of conceptual complexity, the transformation 
              thus achieved is found within the self. In this belief, the microcosm 
              and the macrocosm are held to be one. The human body itself is considered 
              a mandala, and because of this correspondence between the microcosm 
              and the macrocosm, the individual can correspond to a divinity. 
              The Buddha-essence or Buddha-nature is already latent within each 
              person: the task is to reveal it. In serving as a channel for transformation, 
              the mandala offers a means of re-integration into the state of Buddhahood.
 
 None of this happens by simply looking at a mandala; as mentioned 
              above, the process is active, not passive. The practitioner uses 
              a set of mental and spiritual exercises in order to recreate within 
              the mind what the mandala symbolizes and thus to achieve that spiritual 
              condition. Here it is necessary to consider the conventional format 
              of the mandala.
 
 Its outer border is a circle, usually a set of concentric outer 
              rings. Within the innermost ring is, most often, a square, which 
              is itself often dissected by two diagonal lines into four triangles. 
              This inner square corresponds to the palace of the deity, within 
              which is an inner circle, the seat of the divinity. The diagonal 
              lines through it have been interpreted to symbolize the axis mundi, 
              Sumeru -- the cosmic mountain at the center of the universe -- and 
              the human spinal column, the microcosm assimilated to the macrocosm.
 
 The palace (represented by the inner square) has four T-shaped gates 
              or portals, each surmounted by a torana or triumphal arch, Above 
              these gates appear certain conventional images and ornaments, both 
              symbolic and ornamental, as befits a palace both royal and divine. 
              A disk represents the wheel of the law, two gazelles symbolize the 
              deer park in which the Buddha Shakyamuni gave his first teachings, 
              the parasol is the insignia of royalty, as are the ornamental streamers 
              and strings of pearls, etc.
 
 This structure is used to guide the practitioner through the psychic 
              process of the mandala. Through a set of meditations, with the blueprint 
              of the mandala as a structural support, the adept enters the mandala 
              by passing through the outer rings, then enters the palace through 
              one of its portals, and proceeds by stages to the inner sanctum, 
              to the throne itself and the deity upon it, and then, achieving 
              through intense concentration the supreme transformation, becomes 
              one with the divinity and that which the god represents.
 
 The solitary adept may "enter" the mandala and undertake 
              the process independently, in concentrated meditation, but the neophyte 
              requires initiation and the help of a guru. These initiation rituals 
              are complex and elaborate. As they dealt with a rather magical process 
              and the acquisition of powers, they involved secrecy and were reserved 
              for those who were initiated into the tantra through its mandala. 
              There are particular initiation rituals for particular tantras.
 
 With appropriate sacraments, the guru or master prepares the student, 
              who must have the intention of using the powers he will gain not 
              for his own salvation, but to help all other beings, thus following 
              the way of the Bodhisattva. Initiation into the mandala proceeds 
              by stages, including a water initiation, resembling baptism, and 
              another in which the neophyte is crowned, reflecting the correspondence 
              between the sacred and the royal.
 
 Although the Kalachakra Tantra is only one of the many tantras, 
              it has become the best-known because the Dalai Lama has been traveling 
              around the world giving the Kalachakra initiation. Before the ceremony 
              (which lasts for several days), the space on which the mandala will 
              be constructed and the monks who will create it are purified. The 
              monks then construct the Kalachakra mandala according to special 
              rites and in the exact design, proportion, coloration, etc., of 
              this particular mandala.
 
 Since these are mass events, held in theaters, stadiums, or vast 
              outdoor spaces, attracting thousands of people, the rites cannot 
              be performed as they were designed, for the individual supplicant 
              or neophyte who would take part in the ritual. Instead, they are 
              enacted symbolically for the crowd. Many of those who attend simply 
              want to be in the presence of His Holiness (whom they will most 
              likely only glimpse from a great distance), and may have only the 
              vaguest understanding of what is transpiring. But it is worth understanding, 
              if not the entire process and its complex, esoteric symbology, that 
              there is an ordered structure to the initiation, and that the tantra 
              and its mandala are indivisible. Since the crowd cannot pass as 
              individuals through the stages of the initiation, the Dalai Lama 
              uses these events as a mass teaching, stripping away the arcane 
              and esoteric, interpreting the Kalachakra's basic concept and message.
 
 Tucci considered such rites of initiation as being "liturgical 
              dramas," (one may think of medieval mystery plays), during 
              which, at the decisive phase, the divine force descends into the 
              master, who can then confer it upon the student.
 
 
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