Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven The word "spirituality" means many different things to many different people. So just for today, I'm going to define it as the process of getting to know yourself so you can in turn get to know what's bigger than you. A spiritual practice is typically a solitary activity, one that helps you to grow towards your highest self through contemplation and self-reflection.
So, what do you think a spiritual practice looks like? Does it look like this - symbol of prayer and devotion? Or maybe it looks like this - like a silent mediitation.
Or perhaps it's this - to study or read scriptures or self-help books. Well, in reality, a spiritual practice can look like pretty much anything. So with that thought in mind, I'd like to introduce you to the idea that your spiritual practice could look like this.
And so now, if you're thinking, you know, I can't do that, I'm not an artist, I can't even draw a straight line, please believe me, I know where you are - that was me too. Just hang with me for a bit, if you will. This image depicts a mandala, which is a sacred form of circular art.
It's typically represented as having symmetrical patterns that radiate from the center out. The word itself is Sanskrit, which is an ancient Hindu language, and it's sometimes pronounced "mundala," and the word itself means, loosely translated, "whole" or, like, "complete. " A little more literally, it means "circle.
" And I first became aware of the mandala as a spiritual practice about 10 years ago, when I wasn't an artist, and I really just, maybe, liked to doodle a lot. This was at a time when I was really eager to grow and transform past unhealthful habits and patterns and self-limiting beliefs, and I was no stranger to using a wide variety of methods in order to make this happen. I'd used reflective writing and conscious breath practices and drumming and chanting and guided meditation and you name it, but it was a single image on the internet that had changed my entire life pretty much forever.
The image, which looked somewhat similar to this - it was a simple mandala drawing, and what had really got me was the way that the artist had described the mandala as a meditative process. It was typically done in one sitting, that you started at the center, worked your way out and stopped when you were finished. This is describing a process and not a product, and I was really intrigued because as I much as I'd always loved art, my inability to draw or paint had kind of kept me away from it.
This mandala-making method, it was my way in; it was a way for me to express myself through art without regards to technique or skill. You could use the simplest of mark-making techniques, from little dots and simple shapes and little lines, because nothing had to be representational or even intricate. You didn't even need any special materials to make them, although if you're like me, you can go to the art supply store and try and buy pretty much anything because anyone can buy art supplies - like, you don't need to be an artist to do that.
So, true story. I really struggled to read a ruler. I'm one of those people who can maybe measure five times and still cut it wrong.
And while I know there are people out there who really enjoy making mandalas using a ruler and a compass, I've kind of found, ironically, as a perfectionist, that I really prefer to work free hand because it seems somewhat easier to kind of let go of all quality rather than to try to work so precise. And this led me to discover that when you focus on the process of art-making, or pretty much on the process of anything, over the quality of your efforts, you're beginning to practice mindfulness, which author Jon Kabat-Zinn describes as "an openhearted, moment to moment, nonjudgmental awareness. " But you know, since we're human, there's going to be times when an unintended mark will make its way onto the page, and these are the moments that will teach you about yourself because, you know - when you see how you treat yourself.
And what I usually do when this happens to me is that I'll take that opportunity and I'll repeat it seven, eight or ten more times around the circle and just make a new pattern from it, and then I move on. When you resist the urge to beat up on yourself, you begin to cultivate the practice, the ethical practice of ahimsa. Ahimsa is another Sanskrit word, and it means "non-harming," or "non-violence.
" It's one of the foundational concepts in the system of yoga and in several other prominent spiritual teachings. And in a world where I find it really easy to be extremely hard on myself sometimes, this practice has been life changing for me because it's allowed me, through art-making, to find true moments of peace away from my harsh inner critic. So needless to say, I wholeheartedly adopted this practice, and about 3,000 mandalas later, when a good friend of mine suggested that maybe I begin teaching this practice to others, I began to study the history of the mandala in depth.
The first thing I found is what a lot of people are most familiar with, which are the colorful, geometric sand mandalas that the Tibetan Buddhist monks create, and they do this to raise consciousness and as a way to heal humanity - which is pretty cool, right? And then the more that I looked, the more I found other forms of sacred circular art - some thousands of years old - and I found them cross-culturally and all over the world, from ancient Greek labyrinths to Navajo sand paintings and giant Guatamalen kites, like 30- to 60-feet high, that are flown to honor the dead. And then I looked to nature, where you can find mandalas pretty much everywhere, from the rings of a tree to snowflakes and spiderwebs, to the bloom of a flower, all the way down to the cells in our body.
And this led me to think about how the mandala form could be a symbol of our connection to each other and maybe even a link to something bigger. And then there's Carl Jung. Carl Jung was a famous Swiss psychoanalyst, and he's largely credited with bringing the Eastern concept of the mandala to the West, just about 100 years ago.
And Jung would use the mandala - For a period of about one year, he would actually use the mandala: he would draw or paint one every single day as kind of like a way to check in with himself because he believed that the mandala was reflective of the moment that we create them in. He also believed that they were kind of like a path to our whole self. And I know when I don't have anyone to talk to or I can't get my thoughts together to express myself on the page, that if I draw a mandala, that it's really easy to help kind of like transform that energy and work through whatever thoughts and feelings that I wanted to work through.
It's also really, really good to help calm down the monkey mind. So, armed with a bit of knowledge and some experience, I began to teach. While I've always offered this process as accessible to anyone, I've especially really enjoyed working with people who felt like, you know, they want to learn and they want to grow, but they've had some kind of - like they felt like art-making has been a major obstacle in their lives because something somewhere along the way kind of shut them down to it.
And I find that when they're able to meet that resistance and get comfortable enough with the process to set aside whatever kind of self-defeating judgments they might have over the quality of their actions, they'll go all in, and then they become really open to all of the benefits that art-making has to offer as well as all the benefits from having a meditative and self-reflective practice. One of the things that's been really cool, to me, in sharing this process is when someone will come back to me, like a student will come back to me a year later with sketchbooks just filled with mandalas and offering a deep gratitude for a process that has so positively impacted their lives. You know, there was a recent study at Drxel University where researchers found that art-making, regardless of skill, can actually help to reduce stress.
And like, who can't use that, right? And some of the other benefits from art-making can include increased focus and concentration, ability to problem-solve, increased critical-thinking skills. And these are all things that are easily transferable into so many different areas of our lives, especially if you're looking to become more self-aware.
As a young child growing up in the early '70s, what I knew about spirituality could probably be summed up in just a few words, which were to obey without question, which is a little unfortunate because I was kind of born asking "why? " I wanted to know, you know, the way the world worked and why people did and said the things that they did, and this wasn't always necessarily endearing to my parents and my teachers and future employers. But if you create 10,000 mandalas, or if you do 10,000 of anything, you really can't help but to grow from that process.
I think if there is like one really big takeaway for me, it's that we all really need a way to be able to express ourselves without judgment. Like we need to be able to have a thought or a question come into our minds without thinking that we are in some way wrong for it. You know, as a meditative process, I feel like this has helped guide me to take better care of my body, my mind and my soul.
And as an artful practice, I feel like it's allowed me to acknowledge my desire to become a better artist while continuing to honor and value the journey over the destination. And as a spiritual practice, I feel like it's really helped me learn to let go, to surrender, to become more patient and tolerant and compassionate. It's even led me to discover a system of spiritual beliefs which closely aligned with the one idea I've been carrying with me my entire life, since I was like a really little girl, and that is that we're all connected to and part of something bigger, that we aren't separate from it.
Right now, I'd like to show you a brief video with a small sample of some of the work I've done over this last decade in the pursuit of spiritual growth. Right now, I'm inviting you to look at art-making in a whole new way. With a desire to learn and grow, all you really have to do is show up, and you can't do it wrong.
Whatever you have to bring to the table is enough because you are enough. I give you permission and I encourage you to go out and grab some supplies and materials and to begin creating, either through this or perhaps another type of expressive or process-based art practice so you can get to know your highest self and maybe, just maybe, what's bigger than you. Thank you.
