BodhiMandala actually has a meaning!

It is day 26 since Bodhi Mandala was launched and still only 112 grains have been adopted. There are 8,352 more to go. Any more new takers out there?

It didn't occur to me that there's actually a meaning to "Bodhimandala". Here's what you can find in Wikipedia (what can you not find there):

"The term bodhimandala or "bodhimanda" (Sanskrit for "buddha position" or "buddhahood"), in its original meaning, is the achievement of enlightenment, or the meditative posture adopted by a Buddhist to that end.

By metonymy, the term bodhimandala is also (perhaps more frequently) used to describe a place, often a city, monastery, or temple, where a particular bodhisattva is believed to have achieved buddhahood, taught Dharma, or performed some other significant function. Ningbo, for example, is regarded by many Pure Land Buddhists as the bodhimandala of Avalokiteshvara.

The term "bodhimandala" is used in a looser sense to describe a Buddhist temple of any variety, whether or not it hosted a bodhisattva. In this respect, the term is similar to the Catholic style "Our Lady of...", which properly prefixes a site visited by the Virgin Mary (as in Our Lady of Lourdes, but has gradually become a generic church appellation.

Bodhimandalas are regularly visited by Buddhist pilgrims, and some, like Ningbo, have gone on to become popular secular tourist destinations as well. In many forms of Buddhism, it is believed that bodhimandalas are spiritually pure places, or otherwise conducive to meditation and enlightenment.

It should be noted that different Buddhist sects often disagree on the location and significance of different bodhimandalas. As one would expect, the southern Theravada tradition tends to emphasize the bodhimandalas of the Indian subcontinent, while the northern Mahayana schools (such as Zen and Ch'an) tend to venerate sites in China, Japan, and Tibet."

So now that we have created a virtual "Bodhimandala", how can it live up to the definition above? Can it be simulated the first place? Whether real or virtual, it is still a "space". What we fill it up with and how we do it will decide whether the space becomes a pure abode or just a dumping ground for junk.

Whatever it is, such a space has to be populated. In our Bodhimandala project, we try to do this by getting people to adopt some grains and tagging it with a message that contains a "positive aspiration". It is through these words of aspirations that we hope to create a vibrant mandala which emanates positive emotions with every "mouse over", bringing up messages of love, peace and hope. A living, breathing mandala of spirituality in the most beautiful sense is what we intend to achieve.

But I wonder, after 26 days, how many more people would be willing to be a part of this "noble abode" building process?