Customer Reviews

Mandalas Of The World: A Meditating & Painting Guide

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a great combination of text and actually creating your own mandalas. The text is clear and concise. The "practice" mandalas are large enough to allow freedom of expression in creating your personal thoughts/feelings by way of art.

I'm new to this experience, but this book leads me through each step with an explaination and then the opportunity to practice. I've been using colored pencils, but some more dynamic colors might be more desirable at times.

To begin with, I didn't make copies of the blank mandalas, I just colored them in the book. I believe it might be better to make a good quality copy of the blank mandala in case it just doesn't come out right the first time.

Enjoy!

Being someone with bipolar disorder, the concept of mental discipline has always been difficult with me. Settling the mind to meditate or visualize is hard, as the BP mind is full of so much noise and is hard to pin on just one thing. This changed when I started to work with coloring mandalas and then meditating on them afterword. I have currently been working on the book "Mandalas of the World" and it is so full of information and practical exercises I can't recommend it enough. Being able to engage the hands in the task of coloring while the mind explores the patterns and colors has been the only thing I have found so far to tame this topsy turvy brain of mine. I highly recommend this work.

Of all the books in my Mandala Library, this one is my personal favorite -- an excellent reference for mandalas of many cultures. In fact, I own two copies. One for my own coloring and meditation. The second copy remains blank as a reference copy for students to look at.

Dr. Dahlke provides inspiration for design and meditation. He gently reminds us, throughout deceptively simple pages, to reconnect with the "old knowledge" of the Divine within.

I used this book pk-12th grade and it's been great . I use the images and background info to introduce symmetry, radial design, and of course Mandalas. It's been a success!

This book allows a person to explore quietly and calmly the inner workings of his/her psyche.

I have purchased multiple copies of this terrific meditating guide over a period of ten years. No matter how I do the mandalas, I always seem to want to come back to this one. My biggest fear in ordering the book is that when I want a new one, it will no longer be available. What is the draw? The book brings in all types of mandalas - fits my every mood!

Whatever you want to know about mandalas, you can find in this book. Actually, more than you'd ever want to know! In addition, it contains lots of nice mandalas you can color, if you like that sort of stuff.

This was my first mandala book, both for reading about a truly ancient topic and coloring. I've had it for close to ten years. The price is still reasonable. It contains a lot of useful information for persons who have just become interested in the vast prevalence of mandalas in our natural world and in human art across centuries and cultures. There is a lot to satisfy the curiosity and spark more. It goes well beyond patching over 100 designs into a single binding -- it guides the reader through an beautifully interactive process with the art form. If this journey is entered with serious intention, then it teaches or leads the user to engage mind, heart and soul in a timeless meditative and healing practice.

However, the mandala designs themselves are occasionally frustrating by current standards in the industry. Paper quality is not too bad, but both sides of the sheet are printed with either designs or text -- so bleed through of their lines or your colors can occur on the subsequent page. You may need to decide in advance which side of the page your are going to care about more.

My greatest complaints are:

1. THE DESIGNS FREQUENTLY GO RIGHT UP OT THE CENTER BINDING -- with parts of it trapped in the center crack. This problem makes them especially hard to use for us left-handers. Even if you cut them out there is no symmetry to the margins unless one trims all four edges of the designs very tightly. However, I personally like large white borders and emptiness within the mandala for "light" and "space". Most other mandala coloring books I've used provide an ample center margin, some are even perforated to allow easier removal. This volume needs to be reprinted!

2. A SMALLER COMPLAINT IS WITH MINOR TECHNICAL IMPERFECTIONS IN THE DESIGNS. Some are intentionally roughed out in their drawing in a manner that makes sense; but others are meant to be intricate and lovely. Unfortunately, some of the latter still bear unnecessary flaws in their fundamental outline structure. The author stated that these are intentionally not created by specialists, they do have technical deficiencies, and thus put the user at ease to also be imperfect. I understand that principle has merit. But...when it is meant to be a clearly smooth, geometric design with symmetry around a number (such as 8) then it helps if all the compartments of 8 things are the same size and shape. Occasionally these are not quite right and it does matter to me if that specific design element was something I had intentionally used for a purpose. These flaws may not matter much if one is deliberately employing fast techniques for self-exploration, doing them in a group or as part of a workshop with limited time -- i.e. rapidly doing the first thing that pops into mind. They may also be less relevant to users who work mostly with felt-tip markers or water colors (see below). However if one is using finely sharpened, colored pencils or gel pens and investing hours in the completion of a single design, the flaws become more troubling.

3. I understand the original work was produced in German and then translated to English, wich may explain my last reservation -- that THE TITLE IMPLIES THESE ARE FOR PAINTING and scattered throughout the book are little symbolic paintbrushes encouraging the same. I am frankly skeptical about that unless one copies them onto a better single-sided surface. I would be concerned that painting in this book would make it quickly unusuable. Thus, am wondering if "painting" is a mistranslation for "colorizing".

I would have chosen 3.5 stars if that option was available. What moved me to choose 4 stars is a special merit it holds along with some of the older mandala coloring books -- a much more reasonable copyright. This one states "all rights reserved" and complies with standard copyright language. Many of the newer books have attempted to introduced a very restrictive and rather confusing issue with blurred boundaries for interactive products like this. (Newer copyrights attempt to prevent any duplication of any part of any outline design by any means and thus infringe on the person who invested their time, heart and soul in coloring them. However, it is not clear if these latter ones are actually legal when the user has appropriately cited their source. So far I don't know if these has reached a legal test.)

Coloring books, including mandala ones, are a bit unique. The designs in these types of book are often borrowed from uncopyrighted artworks, ancient designs, or ones that are ubiquitous in nature and thus uncopyright-able for practical reasons. If used as intended the final product of a design was not even imagined by the author-designer. It whole gestalt has been transformed into the unique language of colors, textures, additional design elements, differing mediums and use of space needed evoked from the soul of the user. Thus, in the end these black outlines become a whispered hint, a "brief quote" deeply embedded within the users larger interpretive work. I do feel that the source of any design should definitely and appropriately be cited, but the user like any author of text should remain free to make their own personal copies and be able to post them digitally on the internet as a part of their more comprehensive work. Understandably, larger scale copying and commercial uses require arrangements with the author/publisher, depending on the extent and quantity of quotation.

(However one does have to wonder about other patterns such as for sewing, crocheting, knitting -- etc. If one produces and sells 100 sweaters from a published pattern are they obligated to pay royalties to the author or the merchandise -- or only if they are selling copies of the pattern itself?)