I am thinking that the Buddha must have been female....

A mandala based on the lotus in beautiful, downtown Lhasa.
The lotus is viewed as a sacred flower, as in "the jewel in the lotus",
as in "om mani padme hum,"
the central mantra of Tibetan Buddhist practice.

I am thinking that the Buddha must have been female; at least in Tibet.

(The gods, as we know, are shape-shifters.)

There is so much of cycles there.

Above and below: sand mandalas in the Sera Monastery in Lhasa.
Each made with the intention of its own
dissolution; as a reminder of impermanence in the universe.
Photos by Ariel Tarpey.

Of mandalas

containing all of the directions at once

and all of the seasons.

All of space and all of time,

radiating outward from a single point.

Mural of the Wheel of Life or the Wheel of Samsara outside the sanctuary
at the Sera Monastery in Lhasa.

Of the wheel of life.

Of the understanding that

day gives way to night

and night to day.

That life that gives way to death

that gives way to life once more.

Of karma.

Of "what goes around 

comes around."

Prayer wheels, each of them designed to
 revolve like tiny planets in a prayerful universe.

Of approaching the sacred obliquely,

in clockwise circles.

Of orbits.

Of revolutions;

of both seeking and being 

the fixed point,

because the fixed point is god.

For more posts about my time in Tibet, click here, here, here, or here.