About the Lab
Understanding the truth about life—and all of existence—requires a little help. Buddhist practitioners use mandalas as artistic aids to advance their journey toward the all-knowing state of enlightenment.
The Sarvavid Vairochana Mandala features an outer circle surrounding a perfect square, and four quadrants placed around an inner circle. Each colored quadrant represents a particular earthly element, cardinal direction, and buddha, or enlightened being. Buddhas sit at the tips of the triangular quadrants, and together with the white central figure of Vairochana they represent the Five Wisdom Buddhas. They help practitioners transform the five afflictive emotions of pride, anger, attachment, envy, and ignorance that cloud our worldview into the wisdoms and skills necessary to reach enlightenment. Each emotion and its corresponding wisdom serve as inspiration for the Mandala Lab.
Sarvavid Vairochana Mandala; Tibet; 17th century; Pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Art; Rubin Museum of Art, Gift of Shelley and Donald Rubin; C2006.66.346
Discover the five emotions, or kleshas, that form the foundation of the Mandala Lab and learn the wisdom that practitioners gain from working with them. In order to learn from emotions, it first requires recognizing them.
Recognizing our best qualities can be a source of power, but from a Buddhist point of view, it can translate to an excessive self-focus that stops us from seeing ourselves and those around us clearly. Pride can cause harm when it leads to devaluing others or even oneself. Imagine someone who believes they are better than everyone else. You might describe this person as self centered. Their sense of self affects their way of interacting with others.
How does your sense of pride impact your behavior?
Changing our behavior or worldview requires work and sustained practice. Buddhist practitioners recognize the potential for harm inherent in pride and try to transform it. They aim to cultivate equanimity, the ability to see all things as equal. From this perspective, accomplishments and failures are one and the same. By shaking pride’s hold on us, we can learn to suspend our judgments and see ourselves and one another with a sense of equality.
According to psychology, attachment can create powerful bonds, but in the Buddhist worldview, attachment is a cause of suffering. It can appear as a sense of infatuation or craving, whether it brings us joy or harm. Imagine a smell that you love or hate—just thinking about it might trigger a memory or emotional reaction. The strong thoughts and feelings you attach to a stimulus—whether new or familiar— may make it difficult to respect someone else’s dissimilar experience.
How do your attachments shape your worldview?
To let go of attachment, Buddhist practitioners cultivate the ability to see the world without bias. With discerning wisdom, they acknowledge how attachment clouds their judgment, and they relinquish its grip on their point of view. They reframe their biased responses to everyday encounters and see things from a new outlook. From this perspective, people can be respected when they have radically different responses to the same stimuli. Empathy grows when we create space for a multitude of reactions and viewpoints.
Envy or jealousy is a fear-based stress response in our bodies. It can be spurred by a painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by someone else that we want for ourselves, and it might manifest as a sense of competition. We may feel left behind or like underachievers. This mode of comparison can alter our thinking and even stop us from taking steps toward our own success.
How does envy influence the way you treat others?
Instead of coveting another person’s success, Buddhist practitioners learn to acknowledge it as worthy of joy and appreciation. They take swift action in their own lives without making comparisons. This all-accomplishing wisdom shows that replacing envy with positive actions collectively contributes to a greater good. Collaboration becomes possible, leading to a stronger sense of community.
Are you ready to fight? That’s what our brains say when we feel anger. It can arise when we are confronted by something we perceive as unfair, unjust, or unacceptable. Imagine anger as a roaring waterfall; the sound and sight of the water may be all-consuming, obscuring the rock wall behind it. Anger can prevent us from seeing the bigger picture, leading to aggressive, harmful actions.
How does anger fuel your actions?
When properly harnessed, anger can provide crystallizing focus and propel change. In the face of anger, Buddhist practitioners cultivate patience to gain a new perspective. They use the sharp, piercing qualities of the emotion to cut through confusion instead of causing harm to others. This awareness, known as mirror-like wisdom, reveals a clear reflection of the situation or condition.
You don’t know what you don’t know. Ignorance rears its head when we cut ourselves off from our feelings. Lacking awareness can lead to negative actions toward others and limit our personal growth. Whether we willingly choose to disregard the facts or are caught unaware, ignorance prevents us from seeing situations exactly as they are.
How does ignorance limit your ability to grow?
Wisdom itself is the antidote to ignorance. When practitioners achieve all-accommodating wisdom, they experience the beneficial aspects of each emotion and develop an unbiased worldview. They see situations without confusion and are no longer susceptible to the tricks our minds play when clouded by emotion. Without this awareness, it is impossible to attain the other wisdoms explored in the mandala. Becoming more aware of our emotions and their impact can lead to increased empathy.
The Mandala Lab’s various installations feature contributions by contemporary artists and musicians from across the globe. From glowing sculptures to custom-made scents, video works, and curated gongs, these artist collaborations delight audiences in surprising and unconventional ways.
Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned and daring creative pioneers. She is best known for her multimedia presentations and innovative use of technology. As writer, director, visual artist, and vocalist she has created groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater, and experimental music. Ms. Anderson has published seven books, and her visual work has been presented in major museums around the world. In 2002 she was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA, which culminated in her 2004 touring solo performance The End of the Moon. Her film Heart of a Dog was chosen as an official selection of the 2015 Venice and Toronto Film Festivals and received a special screening at the Rubin Museum, where she joined in conversation with Darren Aronofsky. Ms. Anderson has made many appearances at the Rubin, and has been in conversation with Wim Wenders, Mark Morris, Janna Levin, Gavin Schmidt, Neil Gaiman, and Tiokasin Ghosthorse. She also hosted the premiere season of the Rubin’s AWAKEN podcast.
Sanford Biggers was raised in Los Angeles and currently lives and works in New York City. He was awarded the 2017 Rome Prize in Visual Arts. He has had solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and Brooklyn Museum, among others. His work is an interplay of narrative, perspective, and history that speaks to current social, political, and economic happenings while also examining the contexts that bore them.
Tenzin Tsetan Choklay is a Tibetan American filmmaker currently working out of New York. He won the Prix du Jury des Jeunes Europeens at France’s FIPA 2014 and the Emerging Director Award at the Asian American International Film Festival 2014 in New York for the film Bringing Tibet Home.
Amit Dutta is an Indian filmmaker and writer. He is considered to be one of the most significant contemporary practitioners of experimental cinema, known for his distinctive style of filmmaking rooted in Indian aesthetic theories and personal symbolism
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He won the 2010 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or prize for his film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.
Wang Yahui is a Taiwanese contemporary artist who was born in 1973. Their work was featured in numerous exhibitions at key galleries and museums, including the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
Palden Weinreb is a multimedia artist who lives in New York. His work often borrows from Tibetan Buddhism, New Age theory, utopian modernism, and science, in tune with his search for elusive transcendental phenomena surrounding modern life.
Billy Cobham was named one of the 25 Most Influential Drummers by Modern Drummer magazine, and he is regarded as one of the great innovators of percussive technique and set-up. The Panama-born percussionist was featured in Miles Davis’s fusion ensemble, and he can be heard on Davis classics such as “Like-Evil” and “A Tribute to Jack Johnson.”
Sheila E. is an American percussionist, singer, author, and actress. She became a mainstream solo star in 1985 following the success of a string of singles. She is commonly referred to as the Queen of Percussion.
Peter Gabriel is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis, before launching a successful solo career, which included the hit single “Sledgehammer.”
Dame Evelyn Glennie is one of the world’s premier solo percussionists, performing worldwide with the greatest orchestras, conductors, and artists. A double GRAMMY award winner and BAFTA nominee, Evelyn is also a composer for film, theater, and television.
Sarah Hennies is a composer based in upstate New York whose work is concerned with a variety of issues including queer and trans identity, love, intimacy, psychoacoustics, and percussion. Hennies is currently a visiting assistant professor of music at Bard College.
Taku Hirano is a Japanese percussionist and recording artist, co-founder of the duo Tao of Sound, and in much demand as a percussionist who toured with Fleetwood Mac, Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson.
Huang Ruo has been heralded by the New Yorker as “one of the world’s leading young composers.” His musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, and Western avant-garde.
Shivamani is an Indian percussionist and music director. He plays many instruments including drums, octoban, darbuka, udukai, ghatam, and kanjira.
Using a Tibetan Buddhist mandala as a guide, scientists, Buddhist teachers, writers, artists, activists, and others share how they wrestle with five challenging emotions.
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