At least once a week, we venture to our favorite cafe. If Mel is the chef, I ask for her to prepare a strawberry poppyseed salad. Anyone can combine the ingredients, but Melinda creates an ethereal, ephemeral work of art. I have been entranced by this masterpiece, created over and over again. A visual delight. Almost wrong to eat. But culinary perfection to consume.
Then, it hit me. Picture the Tibetan Buddhist sand mandalas. Intricate art created over days or weeks from colored sand crystals. Then, when finished… it is swept away. The sand is dispersed into flowing water. Symbolizing the impermanence of existence and transmitting the positive energy to the greater world.
Mandala means “circle” in Sanskrit. Sand mandalas symbolize the geometric beauty of the cosmos. Peace in the symmetry of the design.
Mel’s salad mandala doesn’t take the patience of a Tibetan monk. Only takes a few minutes to create. But the art and care taken is evident.
And then consumed… by me.
Life / living retirement
So what in the world does this have to do with life.? With retirement?
The original Buddha was believed to be a guy named Siddhartha Gautama who lived 25 centuries ago. A prince, born into luxury. As the story goes, one day, as still a fairly young man, he came across a sick man, an old man, and a dead man. He was shocked in the realization that we cannot defeat suffering and sickness. Eventually we grow old. And we will all die.
He renounced worldly things. And began a lifelong quest for spiritual enlightenment.
The vast majority of us cannot turn our backs on making money. We have families to support. Live in fear of not having enough money for retirement. But in the end… we all die.
Yet for many of us, no amount of money is “enough”. Never to stop and smell the roses. Never to learn to truly relax… enjoy the art of doing nothing. Never to transition from a slave to seek enlightenment for themselves.
Man’ search for meaning in life… If not now, when?
At 60 years of age, I had enough money to live. Not in luxury. But enough for a secure home near the beach. Food. Even all the very latest Apple devices.
Escaping corp work hell, at first I believed I should still be productive every day. Silly actually.
I learned quickly to invest my remaining time in non worldly pursuits… at least some of the time.
I’m not a Buddhist, nor are you probably. Yet the search for meaning in life should be important. But has it been for you? It has long been only a fleeting thought for me as the decades passed.
“The unexamined life is not worth living”
Whether by choice, or perceived enslavement, many of us have been driven, or at least distracted, by the accumulation of wealth.
But now, some of us finally have the opportunity for something much deeper. Yet retirement articles are filled with second careers, how to keep busy, or how to never retire.
Sand mandalas, or a salad mandala is not a life changing event… but it can be a start.
Today, driving home with my wife from the beach, and our earlier stop at the Pine Street Cafe, still full from Mel’s strawberry poppyseed salad mandalas, we were delayed behind a huge noon time line at the entrance of a McDonald’s! Poor suckers. In line to eat their gross, expensive burgers and fries.
They could have been having a great meal at our cafe. For about the same money and just a little more time.
But hey, that was me once! Always rushing. Struggling to make that extra dollar in a pressure cooker life.
But I’d be bored!
Life is brief, fantastic, and to be explored fully. If you ever, ever find yourself bored… you are doing it wrong!
I never thought I had time to seek enlightenment… a path to Nirvana. Perhaps it is sad that I spent many decades a slave to money and things. But would be even sadder… if I had never gotten free when I saw the chance.
Now, there are so many wonders to focus my mind… even a simple salad mandala.
