In July 2011, the Dali Lama visited downtown Washington, D.C., at the Verizon Center. At that time, I lived and worked just 30 minutes or so outside D.C. I had only become aware of the Holiness' visit through a friend who had told me. Though I hadn't planned to attend, as soon as I learned of it, I knew I had to go. I can't tell you exactly why—perhaps it was my lifelong fascination with Buddhism and Buddhist texts I acquired from my mom driving me to my favorite bookshop, the now-defunct New World Bookshop, in Clifton, Ohio, as a young adolescent. Or perhaps it was my preacher's kid blood mixed with the many viewings of Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns that demanded that I see for myself this Truth-slinging Holy Man who's come to town.
Whatever the reason was, I knew I had to abide by the call regardless of the inconvenience and use of PTO. The Dalai Lama and his entourage of ochre robe-clad monks performed a 2600-year-old ritual for world peace called the Kalachakra (The Wheel of Time), which included creating a giant sand mandala. First, they drew the lines and angles using rulers and protractors with the precision of draftsmen. Then they began the detailed and intricate process of filling it with granules of sand—red, green, gold, and blue. While this occurred, the Dali Lama and other monks chanted, prayed, and performed rituals. After a few days, the mandala was complete and magnificent—richly colored and textured. Once the monks had finished the Kalachakra ritual, they began to disperse the sand with strokes of their hands, destroying all the painstaking work. It was all I could do to stay in my seat and not try to stop them. So much for total detachment: I will require more lifetimes and PTO.
Content creation is like making sand mandalas—hours of detailed work and effort—only for it to become obsolete by the newest technology, media platform, or company buyout. Like life, the most profound satisfaction must come from the doing, not the deliverable—the journey, not the destination, in the sheer joy of creativity and creation in the good company of others.
