The Impermanence of Beauty
Lessons Learned From a 6-Year Old Memory
Ever since I was a little girl, I grew up being told that people, and the experiences you endure with them, never really leave you. Even after they’ve passed on to another dimension or whatever you want to call it — that loved one’s embodiment and character lives on through the memories you hold dear to your heart.
Dr. Seuss once said “Sometimes you will never know the true value of something, until it becomes a memory.” What an extraordinary thought. I don’t think this rings true for many people in this world until it actually happens to them. Personally, I know this to be true.
At just six years old, I was hardly in the mindset of appreciating life and beauty and all of the wonderful opportunities I was born into. I spent the summer in Mexico City, my birthplace, and my abuelita never let me speak a lick of English. Reliving my memories with her, she was unlike any grandmother I’ve ever met or heard of. Until she drew her last breath she was still walking and dancing in six inch heels, royally revealing the latest fur coats, majestic gowns, and giant pearl earrings that I could only find her fashionista magazines. She was so goddess-like in every way a human could possibly be. Every morning she would wake up at 5am to make sure that there was a four-course, Mexican meal freshly prepared for when I decided to clumsily stumble down her elegant staircase for breakfast around 6am. She would have these life quotes and sayings passed down from her mother and father and ancestors that she would constantly and strategically repeat so we would never forget them. One of these sayings or teachings will never leave my memory.
It was around 8pm in la ciudad de Mexico that I learned of the impermanence of beauty. At the time, I thought it was a fun story she told rather than a life-long lesson that I now live by religiously. I was already tucked in her bed with my sister Kayla and she was in the middle between us. She started off by picking up a tiny Mexican Canel’s chicle or four-piece gum packet and saying that all great, delicious, happy, beautiful things come to an end.
She said, “Si compro chicle se me acaba.” Translated, she said “If I buy gum, it will eventually finish or come to an end.” She made the saying fun for our innocent, simple minds by allowing my sister and I to fill in the blank with whatever we treasured at that time in our lives. Instead of using gum, Kayla and I filled in the blank with all of our favorite snacks, foods, candies, cuisines that we could think of until our eyes were itchy and heavy with sleep that we eventually fell into a deep hungry slumber.
It wasn’t until I was older that I took what I’d learned that night to heart. Just as that little gum packet was ephemeral, passing, perishable — so too is life, nature, childhood, joy, pleasure and all the beauty in this world.
The Tibetan Buddhist monks have a similar way of expressing this concept — they call it the impermanence of life and they showcase it through the creation and destruction of the Sand Mandalas.
The monks begin with an Opening Ceremony by consecrating the site of the mandala with 30 minutes of chanting, music and mantra recitation. Immediately following, the monks begin to draw the lines for the design of the mandala on a table.
Throughout it’s creation, the monks pour millions of grains of sand from a funnel-shaped metal tool known as the chakpur. This funnel is filled with colored sand and is then rasped in order to release a fine stream of sand. In ancient times, powdered precious gems were used instead of sand. Thus, lapis lazuli would be used for the blue color, and rubies for the red color, and so forth. The artists begin at the center of the mandala and work outward.
For days or even weeks, the monks spend up to eight hours a day working on one mandala sand painting, pouring multicolored grains of sand onto a shared platform until it becomes a spectacular piece of art.
The mandala serves as a spiritual symbol meaning “cosmogram” or “world in harmony. In Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhism, it is said that wherever a Sand Mandala is created, all sentient beings and the surrounding environment are blessed. It is said that for children in particular, upon seeing the Sand Mandala, one is left with very positive imprints which will germinate as sprouts of peace as they grow older.
Immediately after the Sand Mandala is completed, it’s destroyed and this is the most shocking, meaningful part of the entire process. All of the hours, sweat, time, and patience it takes to create these majestic, awe-inspiring art are immediately relinquished as the mandala is effortlessly and easily destroyed. This is a symbolic metaphor for the impermanence of life.
According to the Drepung Loseling Monastery, “The sands are swept up and placed in an urn; to fulfill the function of healing, half is distributed to the audience at the closing ceremony, while the remainder is carried to a nearby body of water, where it is deposited. The waters then carry the healing blessing to the ocean, and from there it spreads throughout the world for planetary healing.”
It’s remarkable isn’t it? The first time I saw the deconstruction of a sand mandala it felt like my heart sunk deep into the pit of my gut. I couldn’t believe that they were destroying something that took them hours and days upon days to create — let alone a work of art as beautiful as the mandala.
But as I begun to understand the meaning behind the art, it made perfect sense. Beauty is and will always be fleeting and we need that circle of life. If life was always good and we never experienced the bad, we never would appreciate the good times. We need love, beauty, and life as much as we need hate, crudeness, and death in this world. We need the bad to remind us of the good in this world — and the sand mandalas portray this concept wholeheartedly.
I try to appreciate all the moments in which I get to see real beauty, because it doesn’t come as often as we think. But when it does, I soak it in for as long and as hard as I can because I know very soon and just like that — it is gone.
