Within the Portals application, the term Mandala is used in several interconnected meanings.
- Mandala is a graphic projection of a person's emotional state at the moment it is created within the application.
- Mandala is a graphic metaphor of the user's internal process aimed at harmonizing their psychological state. A user may engage with Portals methods both with clearly recognized intentions and in states whose causes and mechanisms cannot always be articulated in words.
- Mandala is a graphic metaphor of the user's internal process aimed at the harmonizing their psychological state. A user may engage with Portals methods both with clearly recognized intentions and in states whose causes and mechanisms cannot always be articulated in words.
From a cultural perspective, the concept of the mandala in Portals draws on two traditions. On one side, it relates to the Buddhist religious tradition, in which the mandala is understood as a symbolic projection of the universe. On the other side, it refers to the method of exploring the subconscious proposed by Carl Jung, who viewed spontaneously created mandalas as reflections of an individual's inner universe.
These two foundations are interconnected and not contradictory, despite significant differences in interpretation.
The technical aspect of mandala creation within the application is closer to Buddhist practice. The practical aspect, meaning how a person uses and interprets their mandala within their personal process, is closer to the Jungian perspective.
Within the Portals application, the term Grapheme refers exclusively to geometric shapes of any form offered to the user for the creation of a Mandala.
Within the Portals application, the term Layer refers to a single circular row of Graphemes arranged around a Mandala that is being created or has already been completed.
In multiplayer modes of Portals, a Layer functions as the smallest unit of expression addressed to another participant or contributed to a shared group process.
The interpretation of these terms and the limitation of their derivative use apply exclusively within the context of the Portals application and its corporate materials.