The mandala is due for completion in 2025.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nWhen Guy Lawson gets to work, time just melts away \u2013 and that is precisely the point.<\/p>\n
Lawson is leading a group of painters and volunteers who are creating a vast painting they hope will be among the biggest and most important contributions to Buddhist art in the modern world.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/static.ffx.io\/images\/$zoom_0.092%2C$multiply_0.7725%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0\/t_crop_custom\/q_86%2Cf_auto\/ff0020e88f1edf005083c668f9dbcbf68eebfae0\")
<\/p>\n
Guy Lawson at work on the Kalachakra Mandala in Bendigo. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>Joe Armao <\/cite><\/p>\nAbout five days a week, they labour inside the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, an enormous Buddhist temple adorned with Tibetan iconography on the outskirts of Bendigo.<\/p>\n
Lawson\u2019s team is working on a Tibetan-style Kalachakra Mandala, an artistic representation of the universe with geometric designs and striking colours. Mandalas are often used by Buddhist monks as tools for meditation.<\/p>\n
Once complete, the artwork will measure 20 metres by 20 metres. It will be fixed to the ceiling of the temple, where thousands of people come to pray before the towering Buddhist statues, some of which are still under construction, every year.<\/p>\n
Lawson said the work was time-consuming but ultimately meditative and rewarding.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/static.ffx.io\/images\/$zoom_0.092%2C$multiply_0.7725%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0\/t_crop_custom\/q_86%2Cf_auto\/110a04020b4d409fcdf62ebf27b470911987e2e0\")
<\/p>\n
The design for the Kalachakra Mandala that will be fixed to the ceiling in Bendigo\u2019s Great Stupa of Universal Compassion. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>Joe Armao <\/cite><\/p>\n\u201cIt frees the mind,\u201d he said. \u201cTime vanishes. You just get absolutely transfixed by the whole process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawson, who is the stupa\u2019s resident painter and lives onsite, said mandalas were typically about one square metre. But this work will consist of 100 individually painted panels in total.<\/p>\n
About 25 volunteers were helping to paint the mandala, but not all of them were Buddhists, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have people who just love the place and love art. They just want to contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n
Great Stupa of Universal Compassion chairman Ian Green, who has visited many Buddhist sites around the world, said this Kalachakra Mandala would be the biggest he had heard of by a long way.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a wonder of the Buddhist world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Green said the ceiling mandala would hold enormous symbolic value to Buddhists who look up at it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the design of a perfect universe. It\u2019s a mental map that paints itself on the mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green said the mandala would be completed by 2025.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/static.ffx.io\/images\/$zoom_0.092%2C$multiply_0.7725%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0\/t_crop_custom\/q_86%2Cf_auto\/c06d19993e9179c7b44e526a735d94b50b29412e\")
<\/p>\n
Artists working on the project. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>Joe Armao <\/cite><\/p>\nAccording to 2021 census data, just over 1440 people identify as Buddhist in the Greater Bendigo region.<\/p>\n
But Green said the temple received many visitors from around Australia and the world, including people who had no strong religious affiliation.<\/p>\n
Among them is Bridget Allan, who moved to Bendigo in 2020 and began painting as a volunteer at the stupa last November. Although she is not Buddhist, Allan said she had found solace in her volunteer work, particularly during stressful periods.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really needed something spiritual, I guess,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s what drew me out there in the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/static.ffx.io\/images\/$zoom_0.093%2C$multiply_0.7725%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_6%2C$y_0\/t_crop_custom\/q_86%2Cf_auto\/2413e5299bc4b9879ead7eb53dc8585edb4ffcd0\")
<\/p>\n
A Kalachakra Mandala.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Joe Armao <\/cite><\/p>\nAllan teaches meditation and found that painting the mandala and Buddhist deities at the temple had provided a new dimension for her practice.<\/p>\n
She said the slow and careful brushstrokes helped to focus her mind and remain present.<\/p>\n
Fellow volunteer and artist David Bradtke said working on the mandala had helped him learn new skills after decades of painting.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though I\u2019ve been painting for years, those skills with fine brushes and details are just growing as I gain confidence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/static.ffx.io\/images\/$zoom_0.092%2C$multiply_0.7725%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0\/t_crop_custom\/q_86%2Cf_auto\/ba02d0a933e50b887a46119fd8a79c096ae0d8e5\")
<\/p>\n
The ceiling space where the mandala will be fixed. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>Joe Armao <\/cite><\/p>\nBradtke, who usually volunteers on the project twice a week, said working as part of a team had been particularly satisfying. He was recently working on the mandala with a small group and was struck by how quiet it was.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were painting in absolute silence unless we wanted to swap notes on colour or tone,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just the most profound experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nMost Viewed in National<\/h2>\nFrom our partners<\/h3>\n
Source: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Key points Work is underway in Bendigo on a \u201cwonder of the Buddhist world\u201d.\u00a0 The ceiling painting will measure 20 metres by 20 metres.\u00a0 The mandala is due for completion in 2025.\u00a0 When Guy Lawson gets to work, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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