Mandala's, Fractals and Infinity

[Jesse]

I was thinking there is an obvious relation between fractals and mandalas, mandalas are supposed to show the infinite nature of the universe right? Zooming fractals show this perfectly, a fractal is an infinite object, when you zoom in on any part of a fractal you get the same image no matter how far you zoom (with slight variations over time).

If you've never seen a zooming fractal video check this one out:

phpBB [video]

It's really quite beautiful, best seen in fullscreen.

[conebeckham]

Lovely.

[Kim O'Hara]

Thanks, Jesse.
Fractals also echo the nature of nature (if I can put it that way ), with things like river deltas, tree structures and coastline contours all repeating at different scales.


Kim

[Techno Yogi]

I've always imagined going through bardo must be like this...

[Jesse]

Thanks, Jesse.
Fractals also echo the nature of nature (if I can put it that way ), with things like river deltas, tree structures and coastline contours all repeating at different scales.


Kim

Definitely, my favorite real life example is the Romanesco broccoli



https://www.google.com/search?q=Romanes ... 4Q_AUIBigB

[Jesse]

A video of monks creating a mandala. The skill it takes to make these is crazy. It's almost sad they destroy them afterwards.

phpBB [video]

[Ayu]

It's almost sad they destroy them afterwards.

It is a good metaphor for how the things are going. The monks bring the sand of the mandala to a river and poor it into the water. Like this the blessings will be spread for the benefit of the beings.
Before this ritual small amounts of the sand are being distributed to the audience. I have a small box with this sand on my altar.

[Jesse]

It's almost sad they destroy them afterwards.

It is a good metaphor for how the things are going. The monks bring the sand of the mandala to a river and poor it into the water. Like this the blessings will be spread for the benefit of the beings.
Before this ritual small amounts of the sand are being distributed to the audience. I have a small box with this sand on my altar.

Oh that's cool. So it's like a multi-day event?

I think it's a good practice, creating something that beautiful, time consuming and intricate would be difficult to destroy(esp for an artist haha), so it's prob a very good way to practice detatchment.