[Buddha-l] Maitreya statue discussion

[Sally McAra]

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:24:43 -0700, "jkirk" <jkirk at spro.net> said:
>  Huh? Your message in this mass is nowhere apparent so what was your
>  point?
>
Hi jkirk and all.
My apologies - I didn't mean to post to the list - - I was just trying
to forward it to my second email address and was not aware what had
happened.

Actually, it is a topic that interests me a lot, because I've been doing
research about the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion that the FPMT is
building in Australia. (I've recently completed my penultimate draft and
really hope to be finished in another 8 weeks so I wasn't expecting to
participate in this discussion and may be a bit behind on it - I haven't
made my way thru the latest digests)
It's also a very expensive and large structure, although it's tiny in
comparison to the Maitreya statue!

My work hasn't been about passing judgment on their project, but rather
to explore what it means to them and how locals who aren't buddhist make
sense of it. Another thing that came up is the split between Buddhists
who like that approach (the idea that holy objects can save all kinds of
sentient beings by giving them positive karmic imprints) and those who
think that approach is "superstitious" or something similar. I noted
that Donald Swearer labels a similar division in Buddhists in Thailand
as "iconism" and "aniconism" and think that for my purposes these terms
might be more useful than the common analogy people make between a
"Catholic" vs "Prostestant" approach to relics, texts etc. (as with the
so-called "Protestant Buddhism" discussion... and other labels like
"modernist buddhism" - perhaps "aniconic Buddhism" might provide another
facet to such discussions. Judging from what people on this list have
said about holy objects in the past, many of you, tend more towards an
"aniconic" approach where the veneration of holy objects and the vast
amount of resources that some Buddhists pour into them seems puzzling.
I'm being a bit vague here, but will read the rest of the discussion
before saying more...

As a Buddhist with an aniconic leaning I have found it an interesting
exercise to try to understand what motivates people to build such things
and what the implications are for the locality, and for local residents.
I have published one article on a particular dimension of that on
www.globalbuddhism.org and would welcome feedback....

Cheers
Sally McAra

> -----Original Message-----
> From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com
> [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Sally McAra
> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 8:45 PM
> To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> Subject: [Buddha-l] Re: buddha-l Digest, Vol 36, Issue 39
>
-- 
  Sally McAra
  sallymcara at fastmail.fm
-- 
  Sally McAra
  sallymcara at fastmail.fm

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