Solstice Body: Reflections on the River of Impermanence

I’m in the summer of this body. Vibrant and flowing with regenerative life at the age of thirty-four, I’m in my prime. The spiritual seeking I’ve been pursuing over the past several years has begun to mend past wounds and cultivated my well-being, enhancing the vitality of my age. But summer will not last forever.

For although I expect continual healing and realization of my mind, the body will at some point degrade beyond recovery, finding its way toward its natural completion—death. Ah, death. How misunderstood you are in Western cultures, ignored and denied to the point of disrespect. However, death, you are just as integral to life as living is and perhaps greater lessons you bestow. You complete one of the most basic cycles of the Universe—birth, life, death—leading the way to begin the cycle once more in the form of rebirth.

On the summer solstice this year, I witnessed for the first time the practice of sand mandala painting (dul-tson-kyil-khor in Tibetan), a powerful practice of and contemplation on impermanence. This Tibetan Buddhist ritual involves artisan monks who spend hours upon hours (days to weeks in some cases) crafting an intricate mandala of colored sands. The monks pour sand into tapered metal tubes (chak-pur) with ridges along an outer side, and then scrape one tube against another, creating vibrations that release a fine stream of sand dropping from the barrel onto the table. Through this process, the mandala forms as thin dustings and lines slowly reveal symbolic beauty in stunning detail. When the monks are finished, this living work of art is destroyed.

The final creation with ritual instruments waiting nearby.

As I witnessed this destruction, I contemplated the impermanence this ceremony is meant to convey. In the Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhist) tradition, the human body is often referred to as a mandala. Like the mandalas formed of sand, the body of flesh is created into a beautiful, complex, continually changing work of art. When the work is done, the body is

disassembled, dissolving into a simple pile of brown and gray sand. From dust to dust.

The remnants of the sand mandala are distributed, taken away into the four cardinal directions by the people who witnessed the life and death process. Likewise, when we die, each person who encountered us carries away grains from the life we manifested. Memories, ideas, songs, writings, stories, love—energies of a colorful legacy left for this world.

The sands consecrated and collected by the monks are to be dispersed as blessings. Oftentimes, they are returned to the Earth by being poured into a flowing waterway, allowing the healing energies to spread across the planet.

It can be easy to consider the longest day of the year as a glimpse of forever. But all summers end, just as all winters do. As my gray patch of hair grows, as I trace new lines under my eyes, and as I start to feel the weight and fear of mortality, I learn to relax into the endless cycle of which I am intricately a part.  

Many Buddhists reflect on impermanence through practice that intends to liberate them from this cycle, this wheel of existence. For me, I’ve begun to wonder if riding the wheel is not as toilsome as it seems. What if escaping it isn’t the point of coming into existence? What if the point is simply to be—creating form after form and learning to release each one with grace?

Is stepping out from the revolving door of forms—full transcendence—something I’m really interested in doing? I’m a creator who enjoys creating, and I believe I do this at various levels of reality, working with the material, subtle, and beyond. These levels are currents in a fathomless river. I’m curious to see where the river takes me and how I might spread the blessings of my life to others. I step into the water, kneel, and surrender to the flow.