In the memories of my Tibetan pilgrimages, I can never forget the monks who sat under a grand tent, inching sand on a table, meticulous in each movement. For days on end, they focused their souls upon the coloured dust, tapping each pebble into pattern, into pictures, into place. Round and round and round they went, and I stood for hours around a silent crowd, scouring the meanings hidden in each sign & swirl of this world.


In the Himalayan chill, they sat tapping and tapping and tapping between dawn and dusk, between hunger and thirst, between all of us watchers. By the end of the process, the fruits of their effort laid still, soaking stares of wonder on the mesmerising colours, on the map of the mind, on the mandala.


Although it required a great depth of focus to reach the vision, the mandala disappeared in a quick instance. With a simple stroke of a hand on the sand, the colours brushed over another, merging into each other, and the mandala, once magnificent, was now just a mountain of dust. Though that mandala exists only in memories, its lessons still live with me today.


That’s the nature of a mandala.


From the hours of effort, the monks created a glimpse into the beyond, a vision of the five realms of being. However, it’s in the focus on their task that they taught me the meaning of mindfulness.


No matter how grand of an effort I place in anything, it is just a moment. Life allows us to become attached to many moments & materials in our time, but everything eventually expires. It is important to loosen your grip on your past & future selves to stay present in the now as it will never happen again, and the greatest moments could be missed by our minds wandering upon our timelines.


Inspired by such devotion to detail, Shamballa strives to put our hearts, our souls, our all into the moments you have with us. Each element of our havens is consciously curated for your comfort, from the delicate details on your dishes to our amber ambience all around. We seek greatness in the littlest things because that’s what makes a moment shine.


I look forward into welcoming you into our wondrous homes!