nature

14 March, 2018  by

Want to enjoy a long, happy life? Live near trees, say researchers

If you’re anything like me, hiking through a forest, camping in the woods or savoring a natural space is a sure-fire way to boost mood, energy and vitality. The Japanese even have a name for it, Shinrin Yoku — otherwise known as forest bathing. And they have science to back-up the physiological benefits — stress markers like cortisol, pulse rate, blood pressure, parasympathetic and sympathetic nerve activity all improve with spending time in the woods. It’s not only the Japanese who have discovered the perks of spending time among the trees, Western researchers have now established that if you want a healthy brain and more resiliency to stress, living near a forest is one of the best moves you can make.

Healthy Brain Function Linked with Close Proximity to Forests

While forest fires continue to rage in Southern California, casting a smoky pall over the mental and physical health of the local residents, new research from Germany suggests that the benefits of living close to trees far outweigh the dangers.

The study looked at older urban dwellers and found that those who lived in close proximity to wooded landscapes had healthier function in the the amygdala region of the brain — a clustered set of neurons that play an important role in regulating emotions, especially fear and anxiety.

Analyzing data on 341 participants in the Berlin Aging Study II, researchers looked at “three different indicators of brain structural integrity” to gather distinct information on key areas of the brain. “Our results reveal a significant positive association between the coverage of forest and amygdala integrity,” note the team.

Surprisingly, lead research Simone Kuehn of the Max Plank Institute for Human Development in Berlin, reported that there wasn’t any such positive association with urban green spaces like parks or near bodies of water. For this particular investigation, it was only living close to forests that showed a tangible benefit for the healthy functioning of the amygdala and processing emotions.

And yet, previous research has established that living in the vicinity of nature — including urban green spaces, as well as trees and gardens in residential areas — has a profound, far-reaching impact on longevity, levels of aggression, cognitive development and even how kind we are to others.

Trees: Miracle Workers for Well-Being

“It is a known fact that urban trees improve air quality, reduce cooling and heating energy use, and make urban environments aesthetically more preferable. Importantly, several studies have shown that exposure to green spaces can be psychologically and physiologically restorative by promoting mental health, reducing non-accidental mortality, reducing physician assessed-morbidity, reducing income-related health inequality’s effect on morbidity, reducing blood pressure and stress levels, reducing sedentary leisure time, as well as promoting physical activity. In addition, green space may enhance psychological and cardio-vascular benefits of physical activity, as compared with other settings.” ~ Scientific Reports

Interacting with natural environments also improves memory and attention, as well as reducing crime. Moreover, it boosts recovery from surgery — even when it’s just a view through a window.

In this study, researchers wanted to know if it was greenery in general (as in bushes, shrubs and grass) or specifically trees that created such positive effects.

“Our results suggest that people who live in areas that have more (and/or larger) trees on the streets report better health perception, after controlling for demographic factors, such as income, age and education.”

The team points out that this increase in health perception equates to the effect of a $10,200 increase in annual household income and the equivalent of being 7 years younger. The researchers add, “Results suggest that people who live in areas that have more (and/or larger) trees on the streets report significantly fewer cardio-metabolic conditions” as well.

Similarly, a paper published by the National Institute of Health found that women have a 12 percent lower mortality rate when high levels of vegetation are near their home.

Using data from the Long-Term Nurses’ Health Study, researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, analyzed the data of 108,630 women. They found the most significant differences in death rates were from kidney disease (41% lower), respiratory disease (34% lower) and cancer (13% lower). The team believes contributing influences are due to improved mental health and social engagement, along with increased physical activity and reduction in air pollution. Results were adjusted to reflect factors such as age, race, ethnicity, smoking and socioeconomic status.

“It is important to know that trees and plants provide health benefits in our communities, as well as beauty,” said NIEHS director Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D. “The finding of reduced mortality suggests that vegetation may be important to health in a broad range of ways.”

Trees Don’t Just Make Us Healthier, But Happier Too

We all know that rumination is one of the surest ways to stifle joy and contentment. The logic would follow that, if we can stop rumination in its tracks — or at least minimize it — our happiness level will improve.

A case in point is a 2015 study that discovered when 60 participants were randomly assigned to a 50-minute walk in either an urban setting (along a multi-lane road) or in a natural setting (oak woodlands), those who walked in nature experienced lower levels of anxiety and rumination, as well as increased levels of positive emotions and improved performance on memory tasks — compared to the urban walkers.

A subsequent study specifically looked at how walking in nature influences rumination — which has been linked to the onset of depression and anxiety — using fMRI technology to map brain activity. Participants took a 90-minute walk in either a natural or urban setting and had their brains scanned before and after the walk. They were also surveyed on self-reported rumination levels, along with other psychological classifications. Heart rate and pulmonary functions associated with physical exertion levels were taken into account. The results?

“[P]articipants who walked in a natural setting versus an urban setting reported decreased rumination after the walk, and they showed increased activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain whose deactivation is affiliated with depression and anxiety—a finding that suggests nature may have important impacts on mood.” [source]

However we look at it, trees are good news for our health and well-being, which is why, now more than ever, we need to protect natural spaces and cultivate more green areas in urban environments. The Arbor Day Foundation, TreeSisters and web browser Ecosia are a few of the many outstanding organizations who are working hard to plant and maintain trees locally and worldwide.

The tree revolution has begun.

Author: Carolanne Wright – Wake Up World 

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19 June, 2017  by

Are you getting enough vitamin N?

Have you heard of “Nature Deficit Disorder”? Author Richard Louv created the phrase in his book Last Child in the Woods. NDD refers to the disconnect that exists in the modern world between children and nature. It also reflects what many teens, adults, and seniors are experiencing in our busy lives. Many of us are spending too much time in the ever-expanding and enticing online digital world of social media, emails, and YouTube videos. We are losing our connection to ourselves, to nature, and even to other humans (meeting or speaking face to face). Our senses are being dulled from lack of use and our brains are overstimulated and overloaded, resulting in mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion. Thankfully, there is a solution: A daily dose of Mother Nature can help bring balance back to our busy, stressful lives.

In his new book, Vitamin N: 500 Ways to Enrich Your Family’s Health & Happiness, Richard Louv refers to the importance of doses of “Vitamin N,” or nature. There has been an explosion of research over the last few years showing the important connection between spending time in green spaces and our mind, body, and soul health. Nature is vital to replenishing our energy, calming our busy minds, and helping us ground and connect again.

Here are some great tips from his book to help ensure we receive our daily dose of Vitamin N.

Book Nature Time: Life is overly busy for most of us. In order to ensure we avoid NDD, we need to book daily nature breaks and activities and stick to it. It can be as simple as playing or eating in the backyard or taking a slow walk in nature, being aware of the flowers, trees, birds, sky, water, rain, sun — no matter what the weather. One can have so much fun in the middle of a storm, so get your gear on and get outside! Whether by yourself or with the company of friends, family, or pets: BREATHE IN the amazing energy of the woods, local creek or river, the forest, mountains, beaches, or gardens, and REFRESH.

Use your Senses: Utilize all your senses and encourage your kids to as well. STOP and smell the flowers, Feel the breeze, taste the rain, touch the trees, walk barefoot and lie on the grass. Close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and feel the energy: Bring your focus to your foot and how it feels against the grass, and slowly follow that energy throughout your body, feeling all your cells come alive and sparkle with life. Visualize the energy running through your body from the earth and ground yourself. By reconnecting to our Energy Body, we bring ourselves back “down to Earth” instead of being in our racing and busy monkey minds all the time.

Negative Ions in Nature: Natural settings like forests, lakes, streams, and beaches are teeming with plant life and water and thus rich in molecules called negative ions. Although you can’t see or smell them, negative ions are known to boost mood and enhance energy, which can help alleviate depression and anxiety and calm us down.

Author: Sharmini Gana – Collective Evolution

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5 May, 2016  by

Why Education Must Come Back to Nature

“Unless we are willing to encourage our children to reconnect with and appreciate the natural world, we can’t expect them to help protect and care for it.” – David Suzuki

Humanity has lost its connection with the Earth. As a species, we too easily distance ourselves from the war being waged on the environment. Most of us are opposed to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the oil pollution in our oceans, yet we continue to let it all happen. We care, but we don’t care enough to put a stop to all the madness. Why? Because we have lost touch with nature. Sadly, we do not feel the planet’s hurt. Her cries of protest are falling on deaf ears. For the most part, we have become anaesthetised by modern society and the trappings of economic pragmatism.

We have a responsibility to the future generations to make sure they do not make the same mistake that we have made in severing our connection to the land. Our children must learn to empathise with the natural world if our species is going to reverse the damage we have done. The youth are the future caretakers and custodians of the planet, and the Earth’s fate will one day rest in their hands. The only way for our children to experience a real connection with nature is to immerse them in nature. Education cannot be confined to the classroom. We cannot teach our children about plants, animals, rocks and streams through textbooks and computers. They need to experience these things for themselves in the real world. They need to get out of the classroom as much as possible and learn through direct exposure to the natural environment.

Children need to be given the freedom to explore and discover the world around them. I’m not talking about excursions or field trips that happen once every year or two, or even the occasional school camp… I’m talking about a revolution in education where children regularly spend time learning outside the traditional classroom. One of the big problems with the education system is that we think that in order for children to learn they have to intellectualize everything. We think that they don’t gain any important lessons unless they can put pen to paper and demonstrate they have acquired the concepts set out in the curriculum. What our schools keep failing to understand is that life xperience imparts a far greater wisdom than any teacher could. The rivers and the mountains and the songbirds have much to teach us, but as pupils we make no attempt to understand the language they are speaking. If we only learned to attune to that language, we would defend and protect the natural world at any cost.

Schools should be introducing children to the marvels of plant consciousness. At the Federation of Damanhur in Piedmont, Italy, plants have been taught to express themselves through song. By hooking up an electrode to the leaf of a plant and then connecting it to a MIDI-synthesizer, plants are able to create their own music. The plant controls both pitch and rhythm entirely by itself, only the instrument is predetermined by the synthesizer. You can see a video of this phenomenon here.

Experiments carried out in the 1970s by Cleve Backster, a former CIA polygraph specialist, showed that plants are capable of telepathy. Backster hooked up a common houseplant to a polygraph machine to gauge its reaction to various stimuli. After establishing a baseline reading, he dipped one of the leaves in a mug of hot coffee and the polygraph needle did not move. He figured that the plant would be more likely to react if he burned one of its leaves with a match. Immediately on the intention entering his mind to burn the plant, the polygraph needle jumped across the page. Backster had not moved from his seat. He had not physically reached for his matches. Somehow, the plant picked up on his intentions to cause it harm. He repeated the experiment and found that the plant did not react when he merely pretended to burn it, but only reacted when he fully intended to burn the leaves.

 

Fascinated by this, Backster continued his research on plant telepathy. He set up another experiment by placing brine shrimp in a dish suspended above a pot of boiling water. He configured the apparatus to tip the brine shrimp into the pot after a random interval of time, more than a few hours. In a separate enclosed room, well away from the apparatus, but in the same building, he hooked up a houseplant to a polygraph machine and established his baseline reading. Backster then left the building and drove hours away from the lab. When he returned to check the reading on the plant, he found a huge spike in activity at the precise moment that the brine shrimp fell to their death in boiling water. Sadly, much of Backster’s work has been scoffed at by the mainstream scientific community and this area of research still remains largely underground. For more on plant consciousness, see the documentary The Secret Life of Plants.

There is much about our natural world that still remains a mystery. One thing is for sure – these experiments give great credence to the notion that we are all bound together by the fabric of consciousness that makes up the entire universe. It is absolutely crucial that children are able to establish a conscious connection with nature if they are to learn to respond to environmental injustice with action instead of indifference. We need to completely change the way we educate our kids so that we can sustain life on our planet for many generations to come.

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Author: Will Stanton – Wake Up World

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28 October, 2015  by

What It Means To Control The Mind

The human mind is a wonderful masterpiece that has immense potential. Most of the potential, however, remains unused with most people, since it is not us who is in charge of things — it is our mind that is in control. Our Mind is rushing through life with us like a car running without a driver, causing us constant suffering and sorrow.

But if we were able to control our Mind, our life would change completely. This mad speeding would change into a beautiful, creative dance, giving us happiness, instead of pain.

The question is, therefore, how are we able to take control over our Mind?

The Nature of the Mind

In order to control something, we first need to know the nature of that thing, therefore we must know our Mind so as to be in charge of it. The most important thing we need to know about our Mind, is that it is not something that exists separately, individually, like some inanimate object. The Mind is not an object – it is a process – the process of constantly streaming thoughts. This stream of thoughts is what we perceive as the Mind. When these thoughts disappear, the Mind disappears with them, as the two are only able to exist together. The very basic nature of thoughts, is that they are in constant movement, and this motion, almost automatically, creates the Mind.

A characteristic feature of our Mind is that it keeps roaming, wandering; it operates in something like an automatic mode. Thoughts come and go- the time. If we attempt to suppress them, it is only possible with considerable efforts, and even then for only a short time. During most of our waking time, our Mind wanders either in the past or in the future – in our thoughts we deal with our experience of the past, offences we suffered in the past, or with our future plans, goals, and fears.

Another characteristic of our Mind is that it constantly evaluates things. This means that we do not simply live through our experiences, but we also categorize them as good or bad. We judge everything that happens to us and everybody we meet in our lives. This permanent categorization may easily lead to a distorted perception of the world, as we evaluate our new experiences in these categories. If we find an experience negative, we will tend to keep – and reinforce – that category for similar experiences in the future. Our perception will, therefore, be selective, and we will only accept the stimuli that reinforces our categorization, and we tend to ignore those that fall outside our usual categories.

The third important characteristic of the Mind is that it permanently produces stories. These stories often have a disastrous end. For instance, I suddenly try to remember whether I locked the door of my home or not. The Mind immediately fabricates a whole story around the idea: I did leave it open, a burglar came, my valuables have been stolen, and the police, instead of chasing the thief, will harass me with their questions. We often experience the ends and emotional consequences of these stories. Another type of story deals with us, who are we, what are we like, what we should do, or should have done. The entirety of these stories comprises our personal histories.

A Foolish Game

Most people tend to identify with their thoughts and personal histories, that is, with their Minds. A lot of us are not satisfied with what we are, and we would like to have a better and more beautiful personal history. That is why we create a mental image of our desired personal development and the ways of making the work of our Minds more effective.

In order to achieve the mental image we ourselves have created, we embark on a foolish game, as we attempt to bring our Minds under our own control and be the masters of our own development. Since we do not know the nature of the Mind, this venture is destined to fail right from the beginning.

This game is foolish, since in fact one half of the Mind attempts to bring the other half under control. Our Mind itself deems our own mental image of our personal development as good. At the same time, this half of the Mind deems the other half, the one we wish to change, bad. Mental images fight against each other, trying to overcome each other, using the weapons of selective perception and story fabrication. The struggle goes on, with changing luck, all through our lives. Sometimes we believe that we are making some progress, we are improving, and a few weeks, months or years later we drop into the abyss of despair.

A lot of us play this foolish game all through our lives, because we are unable to recognize the simple fact that a Mind is unable to overcome itself. We may, perhaps, with the utmost effort, suppress what we believe is bad in us. That is, however, just a virtual victory, leading us to virtual calm and personal development because when our power declines, the suppressed forces break out again, destroying all the temporary results that we achieved previously, washing away the results of our personal development.

The Freedom of Tolerance

Now we can see that the way leading to controlling our Minds does not succeed through suppressing them. It is not possible to control the Mind in the ordinary sense of the word. Partly because it only exists in its functions and operation, and partly because there is nobody to control it. One half of the Mind, as we have seen, does not control, only suppresses the other half.

In order to be able to control our Minds, we must step outside of them. This statement may sound surprising to a lot of us, since we tend to fully identify with our Minds and their operations. As long as this identification is strong, we shall not be able to step outside the crazy dance of our Minds; we will have to merely suffer its consequences.

Nowadays, however, more and more of us have begun to realize and experience that we are more than our Minds, more than our thoughts and emotions, and more than the personal history these thoughts and emotions build up. Our attention is no longer completely engaged by telling our personal history and identifying with that personal history, and we become more and more sensitive to the deeper dimensions of our life. We also begin to notice the breaks between thoughts, and we begin to turn towards these gates leading beyond the Mind.

In these breaks between thoughts, Mind does not work, it is not there – it simply vanishes. What is left there is the alert and watching Consciousness. If we are able to take roots in that alert Consciousness, we recognize that this watching alertness is tolerant with the Mind and its operations. We shall see that there is nothing wrong with thoughts, nothing wrong with the operations of the Mind. It is not necessary to struggle against the Mind, as it is not an enemy, only an instrument that without control, tends to function chaotically.

We only have a chance to know the true nature of thoughts and the functions of the Mind, if we detach ourselves from them, keep a distance and do not consider them as enemies. They will reveal their secrets to the alert Consciousness, watching with affection, and we will see the subtle shades of the Mind, the games it plays and the dreams it evokes.

The Disappearing Mind

This tolerant, alert, watching attitude to the functions of the Mind will give us the ability of stopping our thinking effortlessly. Once thinking has been suspended, the continuous stream of thoughts stops, the Mind itself disappears and stops working.

Now we shall not seek our own identity in an identification with the Mind, since we have found our real center, our real self, our alertly watching Consciousness. We will be aware that thoughts and the Mind have not really disappeared, they are still there, only in a dormant state. Our attitude to thoughts and the Mind will entirely change at that moment. We think when necessary and when we do not need the Mind, we put it aside. The Mind no longer dominates our life, it is no more than an obedient tool that we use or not use as we please.

That is when we realize how wonderful an instrument the Mind is, and now we are able to use it for its original purpose. And the purpose of the Mind is to serve as a means of connection, connecting us to the world, to each other. Through the Mind, used with alert Consciousness, creative energies are released to the world to create a wonderful harmony there.

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Author: Frank M. Wanderer; Ph.D   l  Wake Up World

 

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22 July, 2015  by

The Prayer Flag Tradition

Prayer flags are not just pretty pieces of colored cloth with funny writing on them. The ancient Buddhist prayers, mantras and powerful symbols displayed on them produce a spiritual vibration that is activated and carried by the wind across the countryside. All beings that are touched by the wind are uplifted and a little happier. The silent prayers are blessings spoken on the breath of nature. Just as a drop of water can permeate the ocean, prayers dissolved in the wind extend to fill all of space.

The prayer flag tradition has a long continuous history dating back to ancient Tibet, China, Persia and India. The tradition has now reached the West and is rapidly gaining popularity. The meanings behind prayer flag texts and symbols, indeed behind the whole idea of prayer flags, are based on the most profound concepts of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy.

The Tibetan word for prayer flag is Dar Cho. “Dar” means to increase life, fortune, health and wealth. “Cho” means all sentient beings. Prayer flags are simple devices that, coupled with the natural energy of the wind, quietly harmonize the environment, impartially increasing happiness and good fortune among all living beings.

History of Prayer Flags

According to some lamas prayer flags date back thousands of years to the Bon tradition of preBuddhist Tibet. Shamanistic Bonpo priests used primary colored plain cloth flags in healing ceremonies. Each color corresponded to a different primary element – earth, water, fire, air and space – the fundamental building blocks of both our physical bodies and of our environment. According to Eastern medicine health and harmony are produced through the balance of the 5 elements. Properly arranging colored flags around a sick patient harmonized the elements in his body helping to produce a state of physical and mental health.

Colored flags were also used to help appease the local gods and spirits of the mountains, valleys, lakes and streams. These elemental beings, when provoked were thought to cause natural disasters and disease. Balancing the outer elements and propitiating the elemental spirits with rituals and offerings was the Bonpo way of pacifying nature and invoking the blessings of the gods.

It is not known whether or not the Bonpos ever wrote words on their flags. The preBuddhist religions of Tibet were oral traditions; writing was apparently limited to government bookkeeping. On the other hand the very word, “bonpo,” means “one who recites magical formulas” Even if no writing was added to the plain strips of cloth it is likely that the Bonpos painted sacred symbols on them. Some symbols seen on Buddhist prayer flags today undoubtedly have Bonpo origins, their meaning now enhanced with the deep significance of Vajrayana Buddhist philosophy.

From the first millennium AD Buddhism gradually assimilated into the Tibetan way of life reaching great zeal in the ninth century when the religious King of Tibet invited the powerful Indian meditation master, Guru Padmasambhava, to come and control the forces then impeding the spread of Buddhism. Guru Rinpoche, as he is popularly known, bound the local Tibetan spirits by oath and transformed them into forces compatible with the spread of Buddhism. Some to the prayers seen on flags today were composed by Guru Rinpoche to pacify the spirits that cause disease and natural disasters.

Originally the writing and images on prayer flags were painted by hand, one at a time. Woodblocks, carefully carved in mirror image relief, were introduced from China in the 15th century. This invention made it possible to reproduce identical prints of the same design. Traditional designs could then be easily passed down from generation to generation.

Famous Buddhist masters created most prayer flag designs. Lay craftsmen make copies of the designs but would never think of actually creating a new design. There are relatively few basic designs for a continuous tradition that goes back over a thousand years. Aside from new designs no real innovations to the printing process have occurred in the past 500 years. Most prayer flags imported to the West today are woodblock printed. Some shops are now starting to produce prints made from zinc faced blocks that can be etched photographically resulting in finer detail than the hand carved woodblock. Natural stone ground pigments have been replaced by printing inks, usually having a kerosene base. Most of the companies in the west prefer to use silkscreen printing techniques as wood carving is a time consuming skill requiring lengthy apprenticeship.

When the Chinese took over Tibet they destroyed much of everything having to do with Tibetan culture and religion. Prayer flags were discouraged but not entirely eliminated. We will never know how many traditional designs have been lost forever since the turmoil of China’s cultural revolution. Because cloth and paper prints deteriorate so quickly the best way to preserve the ancient designs is by saving the woodblocks. Woodblocks, often weighing several pounds, were too heavy for the refugees to lug over the Himalayas and woodblocks no doubt made wonderful firewood for Chinese troops. Most of the traditional prayer flags today are made in Nepal and India by Tibetan refugees or by Nepali Buddhists from the Tibetan border regions.

Raising Prayer Flags

Prayer flags typically come on ropes to be hung in horizontal displays or printed on long narrow strips of cloth that are tied on vertical poles. Prayer flags on ropes are printed on 5 different colors of cloth (yellow, green, red, white and blue) so sets are always in multiples of 5. Pole flags are either a single solid color or the 5 colors sewn together into one flag. They range in height from about 3ft to 40 ft or more. Pole flags often have colored streamers or “tongues” that are imprinted with special increasing mantras meant to increase the power of the prayers written on the body of the flag. It is also common to see displays of many plain white prayer flags on poles erected around monasteries and pilgrimage sites.

Placing prayer flags in and around one’s home or business imparts a feeling of harmony, increases the spiritual atmosphere and brings to mind the teachings of enlightenment. By placing prayer flags outdoors their sacred mantras are imprinted on the wind, generating peace and good wishes. Ropes of prayer flags can be strung horizontally between two trees (the higher the better), between house columns or along the eaves of roofs. Sometimes they are strung at angle (be sure that the wind horse points uphill). Vertical Pole Flags look wonderful in a garden, try a prayer flag “grove” in a breezy area. Bamboo works the best for flagpoles but any wood, metal or plastic pole will work.

When raising prayer flags proper motivation is important. If they are put up with the attitude “I will benefit from doing this” – that is an ego-centered motivation and the benefits will be small and narrow. If the attitude is “May all beings everywhere receive benefit and find happiness,” the virtue generated by such motivation greatly increases the power of the prayers.

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Author: Timothy Clark. Copyright Radiant Heart Studio

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15 August, 2014  by

The meaning behind sacred mandala geometry

The most intriguing and discussed symbol in Buddhist religion and art is the mandala,  it symbolizes the container of one’s essence (“Manda” means essence, and its suffix “la” means container). The concept of a mandala was born long ago before history itself, mandala is a term used in a chapter of the Rig Veda which contained a collection of mantras that were used to be chanted in ceremonies. The universe itself, was believed to be created from these mantras, the sacred sounds which patterns are in all living beings and things in this universe.

The center is the origin of the mandala, which represents the starting point like a seed or a drop of water. it is where the outside energies are drawn. In this central area there is usually a deity, which interprets as the ” very one’s essence” and the outer lines are literally “grasping the essence”. The outlying square is the representation of the physical world we live in and the structure has four gates. These gates, symbolizes the connection between kindness, compassion, sympathy and equanimity. The following outer circle in most mandalas is often a ring of fire, which symbolizes what ordinary humans have to go through before entering to a sacred territory. 

As well as geometry, colors are crucial to understand the true meaning of a mandala. The most common colors used are green, blue, yellow, red and white. These colors are a reminder of the delusions humans undergo during their lifetime. 

Green: The delusion of jealousy becomes the wisdom of accomplishment. 

Blue: The delusion of anger becomes the mirror like wisdom. 

Yellow: The delusion of pride becomes the wisdom of sameness. 

Red: The delusion of attachment becomes the wisdom of discernment. 

White: The delusion of ignorance becomes the wisdom of reality. 

Every monk receives a detailed training program before attempting to create a mandala, its creation is an act of worship. Each design is meditated upon, and is a continuum of spatial experiences. This creation is as well a sacred offering, since a mandala represents the entire universe, it symbolizes the most appropriate form of offering. 

The mandala itself is one of the most important concepts in Buddhism psychology. It reminds people the potential in themselves and their very presence in the universe. The main purpose is to end suffering and attain enlightenment by having a more certain view of what reality truly is. 

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Source: Exotic India

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