Mandala to Metamorphosis: What Tibetan Buddhism and Recreation Can Teach You About Creating Your Brand and Narrative

– By Brooke Rothman and Kylin O'Brien

Amo Legomandala © 2013 STUDIO KYLIN O’BRIEN

Brand strategy mixed with qualitative research, Tibetan Buddhism and play? How in the world are these aligned? Qualitative research and brand strategy are at the core of understanding culture and business. They are fields that uncover the “whys” and “hows” of humanity. They are ever­evolving, as are we, as is our world. We must adapt their methodology to keep up with the facts of contemporary markets and lives. This is profound work with far reaching implications. Still, how could the aforementioned stretch so far as to belong in connection with ancient Tibetan philosophy and play? The connections are not as complex as one might think. Tibetan Buddhist precepts are not limited. They can be of use in any context. They speak, religiously, philosophically and through art, of human truth. Of course human truth, for the qualitative researcher and strategist, is the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The particular Buddhist concept presented here, in connection with personal and business evolution, is in complete insistence on the impermanence of all things.

The well known paradoxical expression, “The only constant is change.” is credited to the Pre­Socratic Greek philosopher, Heraclitus. Interestingly, Heraclitus lived right around the same time as the historical Buddha. So, 2,500 years ago in both Greece and Asia very similar philosophical perspectives were emerging. If constant change is a reality, which functions from many perspectives across the world as an absolute truth, creating brands, narratives and businesses that will grow and thrive in the contemporary arena requires not only an acknowledgment, but also an embrace of this perspective. More than 40 years ago, author and futurist Alvin Toffler envisioned this and asserted, "The new education must teach the individual how to classify and reclassify information, how to evaluate its veracity, how to change categories when necessary, how to move from the concrete to the abstract and back, how to look at problems from a new direction — how to teach himself.” (Toffler, 1970, p.367)

How can we embrace such a philosophy when we wish our lives and our work to be lasting and meaningful? We have discovered that play may hold a key to understanding the endless stream of creation and re­creation that is at the heart of our research, businesses, branding and lives. Here we’ll let a work of art explain how re­creation can be recreation and why work and life can be more joyful and fruitful when we move with, and not against, the inherent nature of inevitable change. Traditional Tibetan Sand Mandalas In Tibetan Buddhist tradition there is a practice involving the creation of sacred works of art called sand mandalas. A mandala is a visual representation of Tibetan Buddhist cosmology and scripture. The creation of these intricate mandalas can take weeks as each detail is highly symbolic and meticulously created using only colored sand. Once the ritualistic work is complete, the mandalas are ceremoniously destroyed. This is the Tibetan Buddhist commitment to the acceptance of the transitory nature of all material reality. They work rigorously creating these magnificent and meaningful mandalas. Then they sweep them away. In January 2002, twenty Buddhist monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery created a mandala in response to the 2001 September 11 tragedies as an offering for healing and protection. “According to Buddhist scripture, sand mandalas transmit positive energies to the environment and to the people who view them. While constructing a mandala, Buddhist monks chant and meditate to invoke the divine energies of the deities residing within the mandala. The monks then ask for the deities' healing blessings. A mandala's healing power extends to the whole world even before it is swept up and dispersed into flowing water.” (Tibetan Healing Mandala, 2002, pg. “How Mandalas Heal”) At completion, the mandala sat at 7 feet, one of the largest ever created in the West.

Photo Credit: John Tsantos,© 2002 FREER GALLERY OF ART / SACKLER GALLERY

In her 2014 article for The Huffington Post, Priscilla Frank writes on this timeless practice. She notes how over the course of two weeks four highly respected monks applied “millions of grains of sand” to the mandala in between prayer and meditation sessions also known as the ritualistic “puja”. (Frank, 2015, para. 2, 3) After the work was complete, the grains of sand were tossed into the ocean while a blessing was recited and the sands were “offered” to the sea. A Contemporary Adjustment In 2013, in a new approach to expressing this concept of impermanence, the Legomandala installation (shown below) was created at FEATURE INC Gallery in New York City. The work reached a broad audience. It breathed new life into this age­old Tibetan philosophy and inspired the correlation we are exploring here — between Tibetan Buddhism, re­creation, and the building and rebuilding of our brands, lives, and personal and professional narratives.

Amo Legomandala © 2013 STUDIO KYLIN O’BRIEN

In this contemporary spin, and to highlight not only the impermanent but also the transformational nature of existence, the artists working on this piece replaced the sand used to create a traditional mandala with LEGO®. Rather than sweeping the sand away in complete annihilation, this contemporary approach to elucidating the impermanence of all things revealed the endless possibilities from building and rebuilding, creating and re­creating, with these “building blocks of the “universe”! Because it was made of LEGO® this mandala was not destroyed, it was transformed. Participants were invited in an open call to come play and the mandala was re­created into a wondrous city of varied expressions of each person’s imagination. The project was documented via time­lapse video and can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/63134862.

Amo Legomandala © 2013 STUDIO KYLIN O’BRIEN

Still questions remain. Why do we have to be open and embrace change when it comes to our brands and businesses? Can the process really be joyful? There are two major reasons as we see it. And yes, joy and fun are ever­present if one can fully submerge into this practice. The Mindfulness Shift In the 21st century there has been a major shift in culture and society toward the kind of mindfulness expressed not only in works of art, but also in the way we live. The shift, of which we are all a part, embraces a greater awareness about what is truth and what actually works in our world. It also finds great pleasure in the inherent practicality of coming into clarity with these things on an individual and communal level. Charles Francis, author and co­founder of the Mindfulness Meditation Institute, suggests, “The mindfulness revolution is a movement whose time has come. Conditions are just right for the acceptance of the mindfulness meditation practice. As Westerners gain a greater understanding of the practice through continued scientific research and personal experience, they will see how the practice is compatible with their spiritual traditions and their general understanding of the world.” (Francis, 2015, para. 9)

© 2014 TIME MAGAZINE

Technology giants Google, Twitter and Facebook offer employees courses on mindfulness, managing emotions and productivity. But if you look, you will likely find evidence of this mindfulness revolution in or close to your home. Noah Shachtman, contributing editor at Wired, purports in his 2013 article on the upsurge of meditation in Silicon Valley, “It’s not just Google that’s embracing Eastern traditions … quiet contemplation is seen as the new caffeine, the fuel that allegedly unlocks productivity and creative bursts. Classes in meditation and mindfulness—paying close, nonjudgmental attention—have become staples at many of the region’s most prominent companies.” (Shachtman, 2013, para. 4) In today’s world of competition, innovation and ever­growing transparency and connection, it is crucial to be able to insightfully answer the questions: “Who are you?”, “What do you do?”, and perhaps most importantly, “Why do you do what you do?”. This is an ongoing conversation that researchers, business owners and employees must be willing to engage in — again and again. It is an ever­evolving dialogue, a contemporary game we play, with each other and with ourselves. Senior writer for Inc. magazine, Ilan Mochari, argues, “Creativity is vital to the long­term health of your business, whether you're talking about fostering a culture of innovation or the product­specific work of designing and prototyping. In entrepreneurial settings, the tenets of playing, designing, building, wrecking it, and doing it again are highly applicable.” (Mochari, 2015, para. 1) Technology and Creation The second reason to accept impermanence and embrace creative re­creation is often a major source of stress and confusion: technology. For better or worse, today the ever­changing face of technology is a fact of life. As technology continues to evolve, our businesses and brands have to evolve with it in order to stay relevant. Most researchers already have an innate ability to take in mass amounts new information and create something useful and inspiring with that data. Now, as technology pushes us to become more adaptable as business people, it also presents us with an opportunity to become truly playful, facile, and maybe even masterful, at the art of re­creation. That is as long as we keep in mind that adaptability and re­creation are not the same. When we adapt, we are essentially keeping up with the Jones'. It's the cost of entry. When we merely adapt, we do not take full advantage of whatever new environment we move into. So we can choose to adapt to a new environment or we can create something that could never have existed without that environment. It doesn’t mean we have to completely kill our darlings. It does mean we need to be aware, accepting and ready to re­create.

Re­Creation at Work It’s likely that each of us could name more than a handful of brands and businesses that have reinvented themselves over the years: Apple, Delta, American Express and Chipotle to name a few. These brands made mindful changes that kept them relevant to consumers and increased sales. American Express Chairman and CEO, Kenneth Chenault, has said, “Successful transformation involves two things: ongoing reinvention and constant values, or unchanging change. One of the most important elements is that you must also be willing to break down your own business model... because if you do not, someone else will.” (Chenault, 2014, para. 10)

© 2013 SPLASH

But it’s not just larger brands that can benefit. In 2013, NYC based Model Elliot Sailors went from female to male model after some careful introspection and personal development work. Jobs had started to dry up for the 31 year old who wanted to extend her career in an industry that considers women old at 25. So she cut her hair, bound her breast and started dressing in male clothes. “It started out as something I thought would be very cool and a great idea and kind of a revitalization of not just my career but of fashion and what’s possible.” (Sailors, 2013, para. 2) She continues, “I wanted to create: an opportunity to design not just my career, but my life.” (Sailors, 2013, para. 3)

Sailors started booking international jobs consistently and received a vast amount of press and exposure. Though she does not identify as a male, she found a way to embrace her male traits and excel in business. Like Ms. Sailors, the truth is both personally and professionally, we are all are going to have to discipline ourselves to re­create from time to time. You as a brand, you as an individual… are ever­changing. You change when you acknowledge the world around you that is also constantly changing. You change as you learn and expand (or sometimes narrow down or niche) your skills and offerings. You change from the inside out as you learn about yourself and uncover a deeper understanding of what you really want to be doing and who you want to do it for. So essentially, the core, or the essence or the spirit of who you are as a brand and as a human being always stays the same, but the pieces that surround your invisible core shift. And it’s this constant change in the midst of such powerful mindfulness that offers all of us an opportunity to alter our point of view, to alter our story and to reinvent ourselves and our businesses. It’s significant for all of us, in every context (larger brands and business, as well as entrepreneurs and solopreneurs) to recognize that when the hyphen is removed from the word re­creation, it becomes recreation. We purport that it is not simply a coincidence that these two words are essentially the same. It is as though our lives are supposed to be joyful, and could be much more fun, if we stopped resisting change and embraced it as an opportunity for re­creation; for play.

Sources: Buchner, Anton. “5 Brands That Have Successfully Reinvented Themselves in the Digital Age.” Trinity P3. Web. February 24, 2014. http://www.trinityp3.com/2014/02/brands­reinvented­in­the­digital­age/ Francis, Charles. “How Mindfulness Meditation is Transforming Our Society.” The Huffington Post. Web. July 12, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/charles­a­francis/mindfulness­meditation­revolution_b_7766868.html Frank, Priscilla. “Tibetan Monks Create Wildly Intricate Sand Painting, Before Washing It All Away Completely.” The Huffington Post. Web. October 7, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/07/mandala­of­compassion_n_5942202.html Mochari, Ilan. “How Playing with LEGO (the Right Way) Boosts Your Creativity.” INC. Web. August 20, 2015. http://www.inc.com/ilan­mochari/LEGO­creativity.html?cid=em01020week34a Sailors, Elliot. “Model Elliott Sailors Explains Why She Switched To Male Modeling.” The Huffington Post. Web. October 23, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/elliott­sailors­model_n_4151081.html Sailors, Elliot. “The Moment a Model Went from Gal to Guy.” The New York Post. Web. October 21, 2013. http://nypost.com/2013/10/21/gal­to­guy­model­reveals­inside­story/ Shactman, Noah. “In Silicon Valley, Meditation’s No Fad. It Could Make Your Career.” Wired. Web. June 18, 2013. http://www.wired.com/2013/06/meditation­mindfulness­silicon­valley/ “Tibetan Healing Mandala: For Healing and Protection in the Aftermath of September 11.” Freer and Sackler: The Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian Art. Web. 2002. https://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/mandala/default.htm Toffler, Alvin. “Future Shock”. Print. New York: Random House. 1970. p 367.

* All images unless otherwise noted ©creative commons STUDIO KYLIN O’BRIEN

* The artwork, study, workshop and presentation here do not claim any affiliation with nor endorsement by

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