‘Serenity in Stone : The Qingzhou Discovery’<\/a> exhibition. Featured are 800 years’ worth of buried treasures only unearthed recently. This great discovery is the missing link that connects the evolutionary leap in Buddhist art between the Gandhara and Tang period. (The first is when Buddha images were created, while the latter marks Chinese Buddhism’s Golden Age.) In the museum, one can almost sense the\u00a0excitement\u00a0of the\u00a0archaeologists,\u00a0historians, artists\u00a0and even Buddhists.\u00a0<\/p>\nThat night, I entered as a Buddhist seeking some serenity.\u00a0There are 35 pieces showcasing in the museum.\u00a0Technically, any form of art emulating enlightened beings is ‘imperfect’, simply because our imperfect minds can never depict perfection. But no matter how ‘imperfect’ these artpieces may be, they are certainly perfect in the eyes of many beholders and probably the satisfied sculptors. Each piece narrates a different story to different people.\u00a0I’d heard of the story of the Buddha picking up a flower with a smile. No\u00a0words were spoken, but that moment has been conceived to be full of the essence of the Dharma ever since.<\/p>\n
As the statues smile like ones who have found great treasure,\u00a0
\nI smiled because I treasure the treasure.
\nAn open secret that hides from no one,\u00a0
\nThat I wish everyone could appreciate.<\/p>\n
Like Him, I want to be still and fearless.
\nLike Him, I want to be serene and perfect.
\nLike Him, I will be compassionate and wise.<\/p>\n
No layers of dirt can hide that\u00a0glowing\u00a0smile.
\nFor what does the serenity shine?
\nNone other than the\u00a0ensconced\u00a0heart of yours.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, we visited the Peranakan Museum for the ‘Serenity in Stone : The Qingzhou Discovery’ exhibition. Featured are 800…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[63,121,57,58],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happenings","tag-art","tag-buddha","tag-compassion","tag-wisdom","wpcat-268-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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