Being whole in mind and heart,
Freeing creative energies,
Giving form and expression to what’s true,
Bringing ease, joy and wonder into the world.
This is the greatest blessing.

Mahamangala Project shares creative work grounded in spiritual practice. We aim to embody Buddhist insights in physical and lyrical form, helping us all to see more clearly things as they are — and to touch the joy inherent in suchness.

Creation and spiritual practice

Creative energies well up when we settle our minds. 

Mahamangala Project aspires to nurture a virtuous loop where meditation inspires art, experiencing art inspires inward sight, and insight motivates further spiritual practice — on the cushion and in the world. 

Expressions

Mahamangala Project shares such things as:

• Salt paintings, gestural drawings, contemplative objects and other art expressive of impermanence, interdependence and suchness.

• Buddhist-Christian hymns hoping to nourish Western Buddhist practice and foster interfaith dialog.

• Playful designs for spiritual contemplation, such as an 8-fold path origami or scriptural trading cards.

• Tentative insights from day-to-day spiritual practice and contemplative creativity.

We share thoughts and images of this creative journey in an irregular, informal newsletter. These are transient and thus not collected on a blog. 

To subscribe, send an email to newsletter+subscribe@mahamangala.org and then confirm by replying once more to the answer you get back. Problems? Email info@mahamangala.org. 

Intrapersonal and transpersonal experience

Behind Mahamangala Project are Jay K. and occasional collaborators. Despite an aversion to the royal “we”, the formulation reflects an attempt to take a step back from art as a reinforcement of ego. Artistic creation is a rich territory for exploring anatta, the Buddhist principle of non-self. 

The works do not try to mask the maker or achieve universality. They are undeniably personal expressions, sometimes even individualistic. They hopefully touch upon common themes, which in turn resonate internally in the viewer/reader. There is always space in art for new meaning to arise from each person’s unique encounter.

Even works that utilize Jenny Holzer–style simplifications are meant as provocations to examine truth first-hand, not as flat factual statements. Some programs under the Mahamangala Project banner invoke crowd-sourcing to invite a variety of perspectives on a particular theme. 

We are interested in dialog. 

Toward a generosity economy

Mahamangala Project aspires to give freely without expectations — and to receive openly with gratitude and without obligation. This is an experiment in slowly moving outside the constraints of transactional capitalism.

Unfettered generosity is difficult in our modern Western economies. Donation platforms encourage creators to give “rewards” to donors. Art patrons are usually art owners. To qualify for health insurance as an artist, one needs to show a profit on paper. We may compromise, but will consciously seek ways to act on our aspiration to decouple creation and remuneration.

This is not to say we ignore financial or economic issues. On the contrary. Separating the financial from the spiritual is not possible nor even desirable. (This is why BTW we appreciate the work of the Network for Mindful Business.) We aim to foster new relationships between money and art, maker and patron, stewardship and ownership.

Gifts to Mahamangala Project are not tax deductible.

To learn more about Mahamangala Project, email info@mahamangala.org with your resonance, question, input or remark.

May all beings be whole.
May all beings be free.
May all beings touch unconditioned joy.