A SYHP Mandala made by Rikav Chauhan during Covid-19. Rikav started his days creating Cosmic Rainbow Hearts on the 36 Virtues included in the project. He loved watching the ripples of his practice extend to his family, friends and relative strangers as the letters of gratitude he made for them arrived in their mailboxes.
With interdependence, we understand how we experience the world is dependent on the attitudes we harbor and the mental projections we send out onto our world.
This means we can learn techniques and practices to shape our minds towards more happiness and freedom.
When we shift and uplift our own thoughts, we change our own experience of the world. We can move into the world to skillfully offer ourselves to be of benefit to it. It’s the driving purpose of traditional mandalas and this project.
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The SYHP Mandala template of interconnected and interdependent hearts for you to bring to life.
A gorgeous group of SYHP Mandala makers. This Mandala was made with the principles of Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Joyfulness, and Equanimity.
The very first Cosmic Rainbow Heart ever made. It travelled up Mt. Everest as a gift to protect climber Billy Nugent as he attempted to summit the great mountain. An avalanche struck the mountain, and tragically lives were lost. Billy was ok, and eventually later in life he made it to the top. SYHP fundraised close to $1,000 for relief for the Nepalese people after the earthquake of 2015. Photo by Billy Nugent
Making one cosmic rainbow heart is a whole in that it is a complete practice empower ourselves to be happy. If we repeat this process, we become more skilled at making the mental shift from agitation towards contentment.
The more we engage with the Mandala through the framework of virtue, the more cosmic rainbow hearts we make, the more seasoned we become at shifting our mindset from being blocked to being open.
The thing that makes ritual different than repetition is intention. Rituals are intentional movements and practices that are repeated over time.
One suggested way to move through the Mandala. The Mandala is infinitely flexible. Any intention could be used to make each heart, and each heart is both a whole and a part.
The beauty of the mandala is that it is infinitely flexible. The mandala provides a suggested framework as a foundation for ritual use but that framework adapts to what is most needed for the group or individual making it.
For example, a person could work one virtue for a long time. They could choose gentleness as the guiding virtue for their creation and make tons of hearts related to gentleness.
Groups can work on the same or different virtues. Individuals and groups can come together to make mandalas for specific people, creating gifts in celebration or as consolation or to process grief. If there is an intention or virtue that has been left out here, the facilitator or user can insert their own.
The Share Your Heart Project gives suggestions on ritual. It encourages participants to also discover rituals that are part of their own ancestral lineage. The project believes that connection to culture, spirit and ritual empowers individuals, and that part of awakening is rediscovering and celebrating the heritage of many different cultures.
Really, the sky is the limit.
An early Cosmic Rainbow Heart made for baby Audrey on the miraculous occasion of her birth. In the back of the painting is a secret love letter for her to open when she’s older.
Letters of gratitude sent to members of the immediate family.
Cosmic rainbow hearts on meditation retreat in Colorado. Photo by Kelly Lindsey
SYHP hanging out in the lobby in China.
You can make Cosmic Rainbow Hearts by yourself.
An individual Mandala made by SYHP co-creator Shannon Bronson while she was sick in bed. Every night of her illness, she sat quietly and wrote letters to herself, to her son and husband, to the people of Iran and to her father. She focused on virtues of forgiveness, gentleness, joy, presence, solidarity and ancestry and acceptance.
Detail of the above mandala as it progressed.
You can make Cosmic Rainbow Hearts together.
Over 100 people co-creating a SYHP Mandala in Qingdao, China
A mother and daughter making Cosmic Rainbow Hearts together.
Part of the complete mandala made in Qingdao, China as part of the Triveni Yoga Teacher Training graduation ceremony. Each triangle is a letter of gratitude that is sent in the mail to someone. The mandala comes together for a moment in time and then is released into the world.
Young women survivors of human trafficking in Cambodia coming together in safety to share their hearts as part of the Empower Hearts Project. Photos by Leslie Guyton
Their gorgeous mandala on day 1.
Day 2
Day 2
A group of women in Austin, Texas joining to co-create a mandala centered on Loving-Kindness. They wrote letters to themselves, a person they loved, a difficult person and to their own hearts.
Coming together in San Francisco to celebrate a birthday! We wrote one letter of Loving-kindness to ourselves, and one to the birthday girl! Later on, we all sent the letters to ourselves and to her.
