Articles by alphabetic order
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 Ā Ī Ñ Ś Ū Ö Ō
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0


Kalachakra Mandala

From Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia
(Redirected from Kālacakr maṇḍala)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Kalater1.jpg
Pasang.jpg
Km3d 2.jpg
Kmand01.jpg

 Tibetans revere this ephermeral Particle Mandala as a sacred object in itself. The believe that it is healing to the ordinary person, and is the subliminal trigger of the visualisation power of the initiate. They believe that anyone who beholds it withgood will and faith will be reborn during the Tibetan "New Age" time of fruition, known as the Golden Age of Shambala. And, most generally, they believe that just to behold it plants a genetic impulse toward enlightenment in the mind stream of any sentient being.

In texts, it is said that Mandalas can be painted, made of particles, made of samadhi - of the subtle stuff of inwardly visualised imagery- or made in the visionary restructuring of the human nervous system. The first two of these are two-dimensional blueprints, and the latter two are three-dimensional, imaginary models of the spatial environment that is the actual Mandala. In the special case of the Kalachakra, there is a fifth type of Mandala, the architectural, three-dimensional Mandala made of wood jewels, clay, or other substances. It is believed that the two-dimensional Mandalas have a remarkable power to intensify the power of the Imagination of the beholder, to stimulate the confident creativity needed by the practitioner to visualize the three-dimensional Mandala. In looking at such Mandalas, it is helpful to remember that they are models for contemplative visualisation practice.

The adept develops the ability, through stabilized concentration and cultivated inner vision, to see him or herself as present within a perfected environment, a majestic palace made of pure jewel-light substance, surrounded by Perfected companions, and completely secure from any ordinary disturbance and interference. This kind of ideal aesthetic environment is not considered an end in itself, but is only the physical situation needed for the perfection-stage yogas of unfolding the deepest inner sensitivities of the central nervous system.

Of the four main types of Mandalas, the particle Mandala is deemed most essential for the purpose of initiating or anointing practitioners, thus enabling them to engage in the study of the Tantra. Tantric monastic universities in Tibet had to maintain the artistic traditions needed for making particle Mandalas. The keys to the intentionally cryptic, precise geometrical instructions for the ground plan had to be memorised and transmitted from generation to generation. Monk-artists of talent had to be selected and trained. And the techniques had to be constantly refined.

While more research needs to be done on the early development of the particle Mandala, it is likely that the earliest form in India was made by hand with coloured chalks on the ground by a tantric guru as part of the ritual of initiation of his or her disciples. Sometimes it may have been a large, simple sacred circle, which would actually be entered during the ritual. Thus the actual forms of the Mandalas must have been fairly crude, although the ritual itself infused each line with mystical energy and profound significance. The basic purpose is to create a sacred space within which the creative imagination can assert its power over substance. Within the world of the Mandala, the guru is no ordinary human, but becomes indivisible with the Buddha paradigm, here the Buddha Kalachakra-Vishvamata couple. When initiants are brought in blindfolded, they are instructed to set aside the conventional imagination of the ordinary world and the ordinary self and to visualise themselves as the Kalachakra Buddha. The whole experience is enormously detailed, taking months to prepare and several days to perform, and the initiant ideally should enter prolonged contemplative retreat afterward.

At some point in the tradition in India, great masters such as the pandit Abhayakaragupta began the practice of making miniature Mandalas, too small for persons actually to enter, but provided a vivid blueprint for a three-dimensional visualised Mandala within which the ritual is imagined to be taking place. This miniature Mandala, undisturbed by physical entrance, could be rendered in much greater detail, with much finer technique. It is fairly certain that this type of sand-particle painting was done with the fingers in India. Tibetan practitioners today demonstrate extraordinary skill in making delicate details using just their fingers. However, it seems that only in Tibet was the cone-shaped, fine-tipped funnel employed to make a line of extreme delicacy and flexibility. With this instrument and extreme patience and skill, Tibetan artists have been able to make these amazingly complex and vivid particle Mandalas. [...].

In this Kalachakra Mandala, the central chamber is a circle containing a vajra with an orange dot at the left, which symbolize Kalachakra and Vishvamata (Time Machine and All-Mother] archetype Buddhas. Around the circle are eight lotus petals, on which dots stand for the eight Shakti goddesses, symbolising the compassionate energies of the enlightened heart. Other little flowers and dots refer to the other deities of the mind Mandala- palace, the first of the three concentric buildings in the Mandala. This building can be recognised by the three-storied arched gates that are depicted two-dimensionally, lying down outward from the actual doorways of the building.

The next building, moving outward, is the speech Mandala-palace, which has eight eight-petaled lotuses, on which stand the sixty-four speech goddesses, eight per lotus. Each group is ranged around a center, supporting a divine couple in which the female deity is the dominant partner. The third and outermost building, the body Mandala-palace, has twelve, twenty-eight-petaled lotuses, on which the three hundred sixty deities of the days of the years are dancing, each lotus supporting twenty-eight goddesses dancing around a deity couple in the center, with the male deity as the dominant partner. The lotuses represent the twelve months. Outside of that is a ring composed of various elements, on which eighty-eight mantric, Sanskrit seed syllables refer to eighty-eight deities associated with the planets, lunar mansions, zodiacal signs, and mythical pantheons common to a number of Asian civilisations. Sanskrit syllables standing in white galleries outside the walls of the speech and body palaces represent various offering deities. The entire Mandala contains a divine community of seven hundred twenty-two deities, all of whom are emanations of the central archetype Buddha couple.

There are said to be three levels of interpretation of the Kalachakra symbolism, the "outer," the "inner," and the "other." The outer level relates to the entire universe as understood in ancient India, hence it incorporates many elements of Indian astronomy and astrology. Thus the Mandala becomes a simulacrum of the universe, through which cosmic energies can be turned toward the good. The inner level relates to the subtle nervous system of the yogic practitioner, incorporating the inner landscape of nerve channels, energies, and essences. It thus serves as a template for the aesthetic restructuring of the enlightened sensitivity. The "other" level relates to the stages and practices of the path from ordinariness to Kalachakra Buddhahood.

The Kalachakra perfected universe or Buddha land is intended to provide the ideal symbolic environmental matrix, built from transcendent wisdom's five jewel-coloured, laserlike energies from which universal compassion can most effectively reach out to all sentient beings to nudge their histories in the direction of evolutionary progress toward complete enlightenment. As its name indicates, it is a Time Machine - the Sanskrit chakra, "Wheel" is used by extension to mean "machine" - not in the science-fiction sense that it travels through time, but in the special sense that it is the artistic creation with which universal compassion turns time into a machine to produce the enlightenment of all sentient beings.

From: Rhie, Marylin M. und Robert A. F. Thurman Wisdom and Compassion, Exhibition in the Art- and Exhibition Hall of the Federal republic of Germany, 1996

Source

www.thangka.de