Tibetan Buddhist monks create their elaborate mandala paintings out of sand to symbolize the impermanence of all things. After days of painstaking work, the monks destroy the mandala and release its sand into the nearest body of water as a symbol of the cycle of renewal we all must go through.
So really, the Missouri toddler who slipped under the rope and did a tap dance [1] on a mandala in progress in Kansas City's Union Station, destroying two days' work in just a few seconds, was helping the monks--and us--learn a valuable lesson about overcoming attachment.
Meanwhile, the mom who leaves her kid alone and unsupervised in the middle of a train station for a full minute is so unburdened by attachment, she's a freakin' lama.
More proof that the youngest are the wisest.
I was more impressed with the kid's mom. Scooping him up without even looking at what he'd done. Nice.
Er, a mandala in a train station? I'm starting to sense where the bad ideas began ...
[it's all a mall/museum/theater complex now, with like one train a day. I just watched the video again; that mom didn't even know the kid wasn't with her as she walked off around the corner. -ed.]
Nothing like complete avoidance of a bad situation to make it all better.
Kind of like that lady and her kids drawing with sidewalk chalk last night while I was running.
Yeah, thanks for pretending I wasn't there.
Maybe he could SEE what was REALLY happening and the Warrior in him stopped it before it was Manifest.
What's that they said about 246 demons???
[yeah, maybe! The only way we'll know, though, is if you put more of these on the YouTube. -ed.]