Starting a few weeks before the Scarborough trip and finishing a week after I was going back to my roots as a sculptor in building a rupa (form)of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gotoma Shakyamuni, who was a prince living near present day Nepal about 500 BCE. He is the central teacher figure of Buddhism who is considered to have woken up from the bad dream of ordinary life to the way things really exist, permanently sundered the bonds that caused him suffering and become no longer ego but deathless. Philosophical concepts such as these seemed very strange when I grew up programmed with ideas of sin and the sacrificial blood of salvation. The Buddha was a man, his teachings are not supernatural. He born as we are and what he achieved we too can achieve. This rupa was designed as a gift for the Liverpool Buddhist Centre Sangha (community). My excellent revolutionary socialist step(ish)-nephew volunteered for the very arduous modelling which included casting his whole body but particularly his face. The alginate covers the eyes, the ears, the mouth (so one cannot say if it is terribly uncomfortable) and finally the nose. (Meaning he could only breath through a straw!) Ben managed to maintain not only the half lotus position but the serene un-panicked smile of an enlightened one despite these discomforts. Not being a Buddhist he still taught me much about patience and stillness over this period. The pieces were assembled to a detailed life size sculpture and in the Tibetan tradition offerings of flowers, gold, incense and mantras were included and hundreds of names it was dedicated to were sealed inside. In this case in a ceramic box sitting at his heart. This is invisible to the viewer but serves as a symbolic spiritual battery to empower the image. These shots show some of the casting process, the polychroming of his patchwork robe and the rupa in situ at the Buddhist Centre plus notes. #sketchbook #archive #memories #buddha #triratnabuddhism #triratna #liverpoolbuddhistcentre #manchesterbuddhistcentre #rupa #offerings #buddhastatue #sculpture #lifecasting #sacredart #shakyamuni #westernbuddhist #liverpoolartist #lifemodel #castingresin #alginate (at Liverpool Buddhist Centre, Triratna Buddhist Community) https://www.instagram.com/p/CCgTGlTAmiy/?igshid=1w0ouwsu6vvq8
