YOGAJOURNAL.COM / 16 / DECEMBER 2017
mouth to prevent his breath from scatter-
ing the sand. After a short while, I felt an
unexpected calm wash over me; it was the
first moment of genuine ease I’d had since
first learning from my wife that she was
considering a divorce. For months I’d
been holding tight to broken promises
and spending so much energy wishing
things were different that I felt as though
I’d forgotten how to breathe.
Sitting there, I recalled hearing that
a spiritual journey is akin to falling from
a plane without a parachute. Terrifying.
And that’s what my life felt like at the time.
Like many other people, I sometimes des-
perately grasp for material comfort and
cling to expectations for the future in a
misguided attempt to stop the sensation
of plummeting into oblivion. But watching
the mandala unfold reminded me that
panic is unnecessary because the parachute
is unnecessary. Why?
Because—as yoga teaches us—there’s
no ground to ever hit. We’re all in perpetual
free fall. One breath to the next. One exu-
berantly lived life to the next. The monks
weren’t going to preserve the intricate
mandala for future generations; they were
creating a symbol of the transitory nature
of all things and would destroy the design
almost as soon as it was complete.
But the mandala was no less beautiful
for its impermanence.
The monks’ absolute mindfulness,
punctuated by an occasional hushed com-
ment or chuckle, proved both mesmerizing
and deeply soothing. I stayed for more than
three hours, until the center closed for the
night. During that time, the monks never
stretched their backs or glanced at the
clock. No matter how far they leaned over
the table, they somehow never disturbed
the sand. Despite a dozen arms stretching
over the mandala, the effect of their collec-
tive work was a sense of profound stillness.
The sand mandala is an inspiring illus-
tration of sunyata, a fundamental tenet
of yoga. Often translated from Sanskrit
as “emptiness,” sunyata is what Shiva, the
Hindu god of destruction, represents: that
everything eventually falls apart and be-
comes something else. This cosmic recy-
cling dance is implicit in Shiva’s jig-lifted
leg, with which he’s often depicted in In-
dian statues and paintings, and in Natara-jasana (Lord of the Dance Pose). Realizing
sunyata’s significance, not just intellectu-
ally but also experientially, is essential for
true awakening.
Though it sounds paradoxical, sunyata
is the core of what yoga and Buddhism gen-
erally affirm is a coreless reality. To fully un-
derstand yoga and Buddhism, you must not
only recognize but also be OK with the fact
that everything—everything—is a just like
that sand mandala, and that material stuff,
any compounded phenomenon, sooner or
later falls apart or blows away in the wind.
I find this a sobering and empowering
truth, and it leads to some compelling
questions: Who am I really? What am
I? And what, if anything, actually dies?
In Miami I began to more fully appreci-
ate that moving toward enlightenment
means, in large part, knowing that the
wisest way to hold something, or someone,
is with an open palm. The challenge—and
it’s a challenge that can separate enlight-
ened behavior from unenlightened—is to
love the sand mandala no less for its transi-
tory nature. It is to treat each precious mo-
ment as if it’s the most important thing in
the universe, while also knowing that it’s
no more important than the moment that
comes next.
I returned to the Miami community cen-
ter the following morning and sat alongside
the Tibetan monks and their evolving sand
mandala for much of the day. I went the
morning after that, too. Three days after my
return to an empty Manhattan apartment,
the monks completed their work. What had
made watching them hour after hour such
a sweetly challenging meditation was my
knowing from the start how it would end.
After a collective bow of respect, they’d
brush their beautiful creation into a multi-
colored heap, pour the heap into an urn,
and empty the urn’s contents into the ocean.
Similarly, with a growing sense of
peace, I gradually surrendered my dying
relationship with my wife to the tidal pull
of the cosmos.continued from page 14Keith Kachtick is the founder and director
of Dharma Yoga, in Austin, Texas.DHARMA TALK
The challenge
is to treat
each moment
as if it’s the
most impor-
tant thing in
the universe,
while also
knowing it’s
no more
important
than the
moment that
comes next.
Story originally published in Yoga Journal,
September 2008.