Pontos / Dots

It seems there has been a lot of misunderstanding in the way the basic principle of mandaIa has been presented to people. Therefore, it is worth working further on the idea of mandala—what is mandala, why is mandala, how is mandala. This involves working with our life situation, our basic existence, our whole being.

To begin with, we should discuss the idea of orderly chaos, which is the mandala principle. It is orderly, because it comes in a pattern; it is chaos, because it is confusing to work with that order.

The mandala principle includes the mandala of samsara and the mandala of nirvana, which are equal and reciprocal. lf we do not understand the samsaric aspect of mandala, there is no nirvanic aspect of mandala at all.

The idea of orderly chaos is that we are confused methodically. In other words, the confusion is intentional. It is intentional in that we deliberately decide to ignore ourselves. We decide to boycott wisdom and enlightenment. We want to get on with our trips, with our passion, aggression, and so forth. Because of that, we create a mandala, a self-existing circle. We create ignorance deliberarely, then we create perception, consciousness, name and form, sense-consciousness, touch, feeling, desire, copulation, the world of existence, birth, old age, and death. That is how we create mandala in our daily existence as it is.

I would like to present the mandala principle from this everyday angle so that it becomes something workable rather than something purely philosophical or psychological, a Buddhist version of theology. From this point of view, orderly chaos is orderly, because we create the groundwork of this mandala. We relate to it as the ground on which we can play our game of hypocrisy and bewilderment. This game is usually known as ignorance, which is threefold: ignorance of itself, ignorance born within, and the ignorance of compulsion, or ignorance of immediate measure. (In the third ignorance, having developed a sense of separation from the ground, there is a feeling that we immediately have to do something about it.)

Since mandala is based on our ignorance and confusion, there is no point in discussing it unless we know who we are and what we are. That is the basis for discussing mandala. There is no point in discussing divinities, talking about which ones are located in which part of mandala diagrams, and about the principles that might quite possibly awaken us from our confusion into the awakened state. It would be ludicrous to discuss those things at this point―completely out of the question. We have to know first what mandala is, why mandala is, and why such a notion as the notion of enlightenment exists at all.

Chögyam Trungpa, "Mandala of unconditioned energy", in Orderly chaos

The idea of enlightenment is born out of confusion. Because somebody is confused, there is the other aspect that contrasts with that confusion, which is enlightenment. We have to approach this scientifically: if confusion exists, then enlightenment exists, therefore confusion exists. We have to work with this polarity. 

There is a sense of space, constantly. There is a sense of space, because there is a boundary measuring the space. In other words, if we had some land and we wanted to make a definite statement that it was our land, we would have to put up a fence around it. The fence would mean that this particular area belonged to us and that we wanted to work on that basis. With this approach, we get onto our land, we relate with it, and we begin to possess it. It belongs to us. Then we develop that sense of possession to the point where it is absolutely impossible to work any further in that way. That space of our land becomes solid space: It is our land, it completely belongs to us. The whole land is ours. This sense of ours automatically brings possessiveness, clinging to something, holding onto it. Holding onto it means solidifying that land that belongs to us. We concretize it as ours, we make it into concrete land, concrete space. We freeze the whole area. 

Consequently, the only thing left to relate with is the boundary, the fence. That is the last hope we have. We begin to look into that as a way of relating further. Maybe the fence we set up originally might have some space in it. We begin crying to eat up that fence like a worm, seeking territory or spaciousness. Since we have no relationship with our basic space as openness at all, we make the boundary into space. This turns the whole thing upside down, like turning positive film into a negative. Everything black turns white, and everything white turns black. The only way left for us to relate further is based on the hope that the fence might be a spacious one—it might be hollow, not a solid wall. That is how we set up a mandala situation to begin with, with our confused mind.

Chögyam Trungpa, "Mandala of unconditioned energy", in Orderly chaos.