By Justine Newport

In mid-August, with three weeks to go before His Holiness would give the Kalachakra initiation in Sydney, Yeshe Khadro called me into the Chenrezig Institute office. “Would you like to make a three-dimensional mandala to be presented to His Holiness?” Straight away I said “Yes!” – I always say yes to Yeshe Khadro, then panic afterwards. She had a few rough sketches of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s design and lots of books, which told me very little but gave us both the illusion that it could not be that hard after all.

How could I refuse the honor of being asked to make a mandala by Rinpoche? I thought as I drove home that night, pushing my panic down and mentally brushing aside the master’s thesis I was supposed to be handing in, the pottery order I was supposed to make, not to mention the clients I was seeing.

Who could I ask to help me? Richard, my husband, was swiftly co-opted for the light, the base, the palace, the box and general support. By the next morning I had made a list of talented friends who might be persuaded to give up their lives for as long as it took. To my surprise everyone was more than willing, even those who were not Buddhist.

It turned out to be an extraordinary task. It took over our lives and our house for three weeks. We talked about it, worked on it, worried about it and even dreamed about it. The materials covered one entire floor of the house and our telephone bill blossomed.

The making was fraught with obstacles, mostly due to our inexperience and our inability to visualize exactly what was wanted. As we made and remade the objects, we discovered talents and patience we did not know we had.

The afternoon the mandala was finally finished and delivered, we were congratulating ourselves when an anxious Yeshe Khadro was on the phone declaring that we needed “more mountains.” So I made mountains sitting on a bench in King George Square, Brisbane while I was waiting to go to the airport for Sydney, explaining to curious passersby what I was doing!

The next day, half an hour before it was due to be put on the stage, we were still adjusting it, this time with Rinpoche’s kindly guidance. As we went out of the door to deliver it Ven. Roger, Rinpoche’s attendant, told us that it was possible that His Holiness’s ritual master might not accept it because everything had to be so perfect and traditional….

But it was presented to His Holiness, who laughed with pleasure and apparently his Namgyel monks liked it too. We felt so blessed.

What did others feel about working on the project? Lindy Mallhot in Tasmania, who made the goddesses, said, “The atmosphere that was created in the room seemed