Just a thought about Mandalas

Have you ever seen a Mandala? A real one? Made by monks with coloured sand? They sit on the floor for hours, with sand of many different colours at their disposal, nothing but a drawing to follow.
And in the end the result is so beautiful that it may literally take your breath away.
I've seen one once and I was awestruck by the delicacy of the lines, the shiny combination of the gorgeous colours and the fine details of the drawing.
Something so beautiful it should belong to a collection, a museum, or at least be kept pristine for as long as you can.
Nope! After the Mandala has served its purpose, ceremony, festival, prayer, whatever the reason, a monk passes by with a broom and sweeps it off the floor as if it was just... sand.
I was told this is one of the most significant expression of one very important principle of Buddhism, Impermanence. Nothing lasts forever, therefore do not get too attached to things cause they will, sooner or later, perish.
It breaks your heart to see such a wonderful work of art to be destroyed in a few seconds.
But it is effective. The concept of Impermanence really stays with you after witnessing this ceremony and it makes you think, it makes you look around at all these things we cling onto with all our strength and work hard to keep them shiny. And you can't help but thinking that maybe not everything we have is really necessary. You start with the "nice" things, everyone knows that we don't need "nice" things, if they were strictly necessary we wouldn't call them "nice", we would just call them "things".
Then you think you could live without a car, or could you? I suppose so, I could take the public transport, or I could take the bike... could I live without a bike? Well, yes... and so on until you dare to do the unthinkable and start wondering if you could live exactly like a monk, with nothing. Because monks cannot have anything, I'm not even sure they possess the robes they wear. They cannot earn money, therefore they have to beg to receive food and they live off the offerings of kind people.
I remember once I was in Cambodia and we were in a restaurant, exhausted after a long day of walking along the temples.
At a certain point the owner of the restaurant literally put his hands on his head and produced an expression of surprise and pain at the same time, looking outside.
I looked in the same direction and saw a monk standing just inside the entrance of the restaurant, silent, patiently waiting for someone to give him some food.
It is bad merit if you do not feed a monk, that's why the owner was flushed by consternation, he was busy by serving us so he didn't see the monk at the entrance, who's been standing there for who knows how long...
We all felt sorry for him, the owner, not the monk, since the monk smiled broadly when he finally received some rice, he bowed and left.
Could I live like a monk? Absolutely not, I'm way too spoiled, but I certainly admire their courage.