Wisdom Rising Mandala Art

Long time Tara Mandala resident Clinton Spence offers a blog post sharing his experience with the Wisdom Rising Online Program and the transformative process of mandala art.

What do the colors, shapes, and images draw forth from my sub-conscious?

Every Losar (Tibetan New Year), all Tara Mandala residents go into two-week solitary retreat. For my 2019 Losar retreat, I spent most of my time journeying through the Wisdom Rising Online Program. I was very excited to be spending a lot of time drawing mandalas!

On my third day of retreat, something clicked. Reading over Lama Tsultrim’s instructions for Mandala Work with Your Hands, her words jumped out at me: “Let yourself free within the basic structure.” These simple words completely opened up my Wisdom Rising experience.

As the retreat transpired, the more this state of being was present, the more the mandala drawings stripped my ego back into naked awareness. With the mandala meditation, a view, or an “energetic posture” was stabilized, and with the processes of Dakini Journeys, regression meditation, and mandala art, deeper knowings surfaced, and in their revealing provided resolution, comfort, and healing. And the more I let go, the more the art was “art-ing” itself into creation.

The brilliance of the practice was so evident. The mandala art was a meditation. A process of communication beyond words, that resolved lifelong dis-eases that had become lodged and solidified into my being. They were brought to life through exploring colors, textures, and lines, my hands translating the deeper narrative at play, either loosening grip to dance around an idea, or applying pressure to strongly emphasize a point. Colors began to have texture, textures began to have shape, answers began to have questions … abiding in the mysterious home of the Dakini!

I especially enjoyed how Dakini Mandala meditations were focused on a specific family, and revealed how all the other families (or emotional states) influenced a certain behavior or aspect of my life that had significantly entangled me. And in surrendering any “rules” to creating the accompanying art, brought forth incredible details of behaviors and patterns in my life.

For example, in Mandala Art 03 (see image), the Karma family – the family of Action, in this particular case was encumbered by Padma (sensitive and prickly), and Karma itself (denial of taking action and being consumed by this denial), while offering wisdom through Buddha (curious witnessing) and Vajra (melting of paralysis), while Ratna honored both the abundance and depletion of the richness of perfectionism. In no way would I have had these elaborate insights were it not for the mandala art reflecting myself back to me, in something that was created out of me, created without censorship or reservation. What a freeing process this was!

My Wisdom Rising journey was made even more potent by practicing Feeding Your Demons (FYD), which is hugely integrated into the course. It was almost like the mandala laid out the scene and characters, and FYD allowed me to focus in on something that needed further investigation, that needed an extended portion of my time and attention. Personifying that scene or character as a “demon” (or “god”) and experiencing the liberation of this “demon” fine-tuned the overall healing of the mandala.

Upon completion of my retreat, I had truly journeyed into the mandala, and developed new skills for creativity, communication, relating to myself and others, and most importantly, as Lama Tsultrim describes it, to be “in the flow” and not “the force.” In writing, drawing, making music, cooking, or any work activity, I can always invite this ease back into the moment, and enjoy whatever unfolds. To simply watch as life is “life-ing” itself into creation.

—

Enjoy personal growth and transformation through “Mandala Work with Your Hands^TM“, just one aspect of the Wisdom Rising ‘Live’ Online Program with Lama Tsultrim Allione and Lopön Karla Jackson-Brewer, which begins this Sunday, October 25. At the heart of this retreat is the Mandala of the Five Dakinis, which takes the ancient wisdom of the Tibetan Buddhist mandala, and reframes it to offer insight and wisdom to our modern situations and disposition. Click here to register.