Mandala

Literally a circle or disc, a mandala is any arrangement organised around a centre: the circular sections of the Rig Veda, the diagram a ritual is built on, the political map of a kingdom and its neighbours, the painted palace of a deity used in visualisation.

The form does psychological work. A centre and a boundary transform an undifferentiated field into a place: this belongs, that stays outside, everything faces inward. Attention behaves the same way, which is why the mandala became a tool of meditation rather than only decoration.

A day can be built as a mandala - a fixed centre (a practice, a text, a person) with the hours arranged around it, rather than a corridor of tasks that happens to end in sleep.

सम्पादकीय डेस्क से, शास्त्र डाइजेस्ट। (विस्तृत निबन्ध अभी अंग्रेज़ी में है; हिन्दी अनुवाद क्रमशः आ रहे हैं।)