This week’s meditation session is led by Kimberly Brown and the theme is Action. The guided meditation begins at 17:20.

Following the devastating earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25, 2015, Tsherin Sherpa returned to his home city of Kathmandu and created Wish-fulfilling Tree. He worked with local craftsmen to create a seven-layer bronze mandala, an idealized representation of the cosmic universe. Both a memorial to the destruction wrought by the earthquake and a wish for the future, the mandala is surrounded by rubble, debris, and found objects, representing the types of household goods destroyed during the natural disaster and creating a relationship between cosmic aspiration and earthly reality.

The notion of a wish-fulfilling tree is found across Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism to satisfy worldly and celestial desires. In Sherpa’s installation it alludes to the Nepalese’s practical hope for economic compensation post-earthquake, symbolized in an earlier iteration of this work with signed rupee notes on the mandala. The rubble, debris, and found objects were all sourced from within 5 blocks of the Rubin Museum, creating a local connection that also speaks to the universality of the work’s intentions.