The Sand Mandala (Tibetan: དཀྱིལ་འཁོར།; kilkhor) is a Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of mandalas made from colored sand. A sand mandala is ritualistically destroyed once it has been completed and its accompanying ceremonies and viewing are finished to symbolize the Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life. (link)

Planning creation, planning destruction

You build a fire and then you light it…

Symbolism in each grain

Ceremonious cooperation

Beauty is fleeting, as are all things

Fine detail, fine labor, and karmic purification

Sweeping away the attachment…

A Mandala Destruction Ceremony

“When you are content to be simply
yourself and don’t compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.”
- Lao Tzu

These are meant to be burned at funerals in China.
The concept of Hell was interpreted as a general ‘afterlife’, not as the Christian missionaries attempted to convey it in the negative, eternal-hell-fire sense that we understand in the west. Hence the use of ‘Hell Notes’ to ferry departed souls into ‘Heaven’.

More Chinese Hell Notes can be seen here: (http://www.bigwhiteguy.com/baskets/hell.php)

More Really Cool World Bank Notes can be seen here: (http://www.joelscoins.com/catpm.htm)

Hermetic Astronomy
~ Paracelsus ~