"to add that decisive note of literary drama to our sorrows"

i read that in a book somewhere - i can't remember the context- and thought it was the funniest thing.

i'm working on the first of two 20-page papers that are due in about ten days, and the monumental task of actually writing these cursed papers is bringing me down. these will be the 6th and 7th papers of this length that i will have written for my master's, and i am really, really tired of this.

i had contemplated posting one or both of the papers to my blog once i was finished with them, but now, as i'm writing them, i'm too sick of them to do that. so i'll post an old email instead- much more pleasant to read than post-colonial theory, believe me!
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buddhist sand mandala

the buddha of great compassion, chenrezig, a tibetan monk, came to loyola and created this incredible sand mandala last week. for seven days he toiled over this- it is such painstaking work, and the finished creation was absolutely breathtaking. before seeing it, i never imagined how intricate the mandala would be- the detail that he was able to achieve with grains of colored sand amazed me.

the mandala is seen as an expression of the buddha's enlightened mind, and is said to nourish enlightenment in the minds of those who contemplate and watch the mandala's creation. as he created it the buddha meditated- observing him create the mandala was meditative for the audience, as well- i found myself transfixed, watching him create this absolute beauty with such extreme patience and concentration.

the mandala is supposed to be a lesson in impermanence and non-attachment, in that after it is completed, it is ritualistically destroyed. this way of thinking is so radically different from our own- the entire campus grew so attached to this mandala that the thought of its destruction was actually painful. i went to see it almost everyday, to see how far the buddha had progressed, and i was not alone in wishing we could prolong the destruction. yet i also understand the lesson behind it, and this is one i don't have to be buddhist to learn. this mandala, into which the buddha poured himself, body and mind, for seven days, can be destroyed so quickly, can be forgotten a second after its completion. i think there are a lot of things i work hard for that are just as transient, just as temporary- the mandala is a representation of what is true in life, and it makes no sense to become attached to the mandala because the mandala itself is meaningless. this is a metaphor relevant to aspects of my life, and thus the experience of watching the creation and subsequent destruction of the mandala was a meaningful experience for me.

to push this just a bit further, apart from the significance of the mandala, on the purely aesthetic level, it was amazing as well- at a beach near my campus, there are a row of stone benches, perhaps a half a mile long, which are covered with artwork by artists from the surrounding community- everyone from accomplished talents to amateurs to children. they are fascinating, in that everyone who painted a bench did so to help foster and unite the community, and the subjects of the paintings differ widely but all exude a sense of wonder at the world- there are paintings of people playing at the beach, there are paintings of the lake and the sky and the earth, there are paintings that represent diversity and there are paintings that represent oneness. amid a neighborhood better known for its crime than its beauty, these benches make me truly happy- they show me that i will never stop being amazed by what people can do, by the way both extreme emotion and complete peace can be palpable in a work of art, from the intricacies of a sand mandala to the simplicity of a painted bench.