Talk given at RMIT University, Melbourne, interfaith seminar entitled, "Artefact and the Expression of Belief", 28th August 2002

My topic is the Buddha statue as an inspiration for faith. My topic is not an art history of the statue ­ I will not be explaining how the different forms came about through contact with different cultures, why there are Chinese types, Gandharan types, Nepalese types, my topic is to look at how a Buddhist practitioner interacts with the statue. For a Buddhist, the Buddha statue is an example of perfection. He is seated in a meditation posture ­ meditation representing tranquillity and understanding. He has a calm beautiful face, representing equanimity, wisdom and compassion. His form is a sign of enlightenment. When you look at the Buddha statue you see a representation of what we call the 'fruit of the path'. The Buddhist religion is closely concerned with the idea of a 'path'. A path is a way of living and also a method of spiritual progress. The Buddhist path is a journey towards what we call enlightenment. Enlightenment is a condition of knowing truth. Not a truth that is mundane and changeable, but a truth that is beyond description. A truth that transcends all dualistic boundaries of knower, knowledge and object of knowledge. So when we look at a Buddha statue, we are reminded of the idea of enlightenment, the idea of understanding truth, the idea of something beyond duality. The statue contains a message about a path, an example of meditation, ideas of wisdom and equanimity. The Buddha statue also represents an historical person. In this way, the concept of a path to an enlightenment is not just an abstract theory that could be argued successfully, it is something that happened. Somebody went there. There is an example from life, a human being who went beyond ordinary experience. Interestingly the Buddha did not allow statues to be made of him during his life time. He did not want people to think that there was just this one person who should be worshipped. He did want the experience represented, however, so the earliest statues are of his foot prints, or images of a seat beneath a tree, or of a reliquary monument. In this way there is a sign that emphasises the experience over the historical person. That is one of the most important qualities of Buddhism, that it talks about an accessible path and an accessible experience. It is not talking about a transcendent reality which is the sole province of a distant deity, it is talking about something that a real historical person was able to accomplish and then able to teach. The next question might be, when does a Buddhist look at a Buddha statue? Normally a Buddhist does not look at a Buddha statue in a museum as a work of art, but in the context of his or her own worship, on a shrine or in a temple or other holy place. For the practising Buddhist the age and expense of a statue is not the most important thing, a statue might be brand new and not expensive, but if it is well made and a thing of beauty then it does the work of a statue. Most Buddhists will own quite ordinary statues, not historical or worthy of being shown in a museum. Every Buddhist is encouraged to have their own shrine. A shrine is the context in which the statue is appreciated. Ideally a shrine has offerings placed daily. There are many different kinds of offerings. For example, the eight offerings represented through offering bowls and this is what I am showing here. These are water for drinking, water for washing the feet ­ which is a classic Indian devotional practice ­ flowers, incense, lights, scents, food and music. In this way the Buddha is imagined as the receiver of offerings. Everyone knows that the Buddha has no actual need of bathwater or food, but this is the way of cultivating a devotional state of mind. A beautiful shrine creates a spiritual atmosphere, a sense of beauty. The appropriate actions for a Buddhist are to physically prostrate on the floor before the shrine and the statue. This is our way of recognising that there is something higher than our ordinary selves. Something to aspire to. We show respect to the one who has completed the path. We recognise our own limitations. We recognise we still have a long way to go. The prostration shows our commitment to following in the example of the Buddha. This does not mean any claim of attainment, it only means an aspiration. However, because we are following an ancient tradition that has been set down for two and a half thousand years we have guidance. We are not making something up that may not lead anywhere. And while the statue seeks to represent the actual historical Buddha, at the same time Buddhism has accrued immense wisdom and experience over the last two and a half thousand years. All the great teachers of the past have contributed their interpretation and understanding within the parameters set down by the original Buddha. So the statue represents not just one historical person but the whole tradition ­ with many, many historical persons. Again when looking at the shrine, looking at the statue, we can look in different ways. You can look at the statue and think, this cost $100 in Chapel Street, which it did. But in the Tibetan tradition there is an emphasis on using your imagination. So instead you look at the statue and think, 'This is the real Buddha'. You can look at the offerings and think, only one orange, but in the Tibetan tradition you are encouraged to use your imagination to think hundreds of oranges, all possible offerings, though these actual things are small and not very impressive, by my imagination I offer vast universes full of wonderful things. So the shrine is a focal point for thinking beyond the material. In Buddhism we seek to expand our sense of what is possible, and so if we open ourselves to our imagination we can develop a vaster point of view. Now the next thing I want to show you is a Buddha statue that is not based on the historical Buddha. The form of the statue is used as a sign to depict a huge range of enlightened experience. This is Chenrezig or Avalokiteshvara. The many heads and hands can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but generally these give the message of many different kinds of abilities. He has different implements in each hand and these indicate different capacities, different functions. He is not limited to one head - one limited point of view. Many images in Buddhism and Hinduism are a kind of sign language or hieroglyphics. A two headed bird will indicate the ability to speak two languages. A flower stem with a bud, a blossoming flower and a dead flower indicates the Buddhas of the past, the present and the future.

This is Tara. She is a female Buddha and there is a story that she was a real person, like the historical Buddha, who became enlightened. She had been told that it was compulsory to be a man to become enlightened and she rebelled against that and became an enlightened woman. Whether or not she is historical the message is that wisdom is not determined by gender. Enlightened mind has no duality of male and female. A female Buddha image shows that femaleness is not a hindrance.

So when a Buddhist looks at a Buddha statue they are reading a language of signs. The signs are reminders of Buddhist spiritual truths. They embody the aspirations and ideals of the Buddhist faith. One of the most important of these is that Buddhahood is a possibility, a condition that ordinary people can aspire to and achieve. We may not be able to have a very clear understanding of what that condition is, but we can see what it looks like. It looks like a tranquil meditative state. It does not look like anger or excitement. It looks like equanimity and wisdom.