Quotes & Sayings About Mandalas

The idea that the Gate is dangerous and could destroy those who try to enter it is familiar to anyone who has seen the Magic Flute by Mozart or the many mandalas of India and Tibet that show fierce guardians at the gates. Even in Biblical mythology, there is an angel with a fiery sword at the Gate to Paradise. — Simon

The "I" was not the self, but from there one could see the divine miracle. The small light resembled the great light. Henceforth, he stopped painting mandalas. The dream had expressed the unconscious developmental process, which was not linear, and he found it completely satisfying. He felt utterly alone at that time, preoccupied with something great that others didn't understand. In the dream, only he saw the tree. While they stood in the darkness, the tree appeared radiantly. Had he not had such a vision, his life would have lost meaning. — C. G. Jung

The Tibetan monks make mandalas out of dyed sand laid out into big, beautiful designs.
And when they're done, after days or weeks of work, they wipe it all away. They let it all go,
no pain, no regrets. That is happiness. That is bliss. The euphoria of Nirvana. We live for
that. Just for the experience. We paint a picture and we erase it. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

My mandalas were cryptograms concerning the state of the self which was presented to me anew each day ... I guarded them like precious pearls ... It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation. — Carl Jung

He was gazing down at me, and his eyes were endless, deep pools of pleading and fire and barely restrained something or other, and they were magnetic, like black holes, but full of flames, and yet gray, and yet full of colors and see-through and dancing with little flecks of glitter, and I couldn't look away, and what pretty eyelashes he had, as long and dark as a woman's, as a kitten's, as a panther's, and the smell, oh, the smell, like crushed heather and berries and springtime in the morning and bodies rolling over and over in the grass and everything covered with dew like cobwebs making mandalas of raindrops, and I couldn't stand it, couldn't hold back for one more second ... — Delilah S. Dawson

In tantric practice one identifies with a yidam of a particular buddha family corresponding to one's nature. For instance, if a yidam is associated with the ratna family, then he will be yellow in color and have symbolism characteristic of ratna. The types of mandalas given to you by your teacher depend upon the family to which you belong, whether you belong to the passionate family or the family of pride, or whether you have the quality of air or water in you. Generally one can feel that certain people have the quality of earth and solidness, and certain people have the quality of air, rushing here and there, and other people have the quality of warmth and a presence connected with fire. The mandalas are given to you so that you can identify yourself with your particular emotions which have the potential of transmuting into wisdom. — Chogyam Trungpa

The mandalas were meant to be objects of contemplation, aids to meditation, their proportions magically balanced to purify and calm the mind. To stare at a mandala was to experience, if only briefly, the nothingness that is at the heart of enlightenment. — Douglas Preston