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Posts Tagged ‘Buddha’

Calm & Centered: Cemetery Tunnel Trek Reveals Huge Hill-Wrapped Buddha

13 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

A massive landscape intervention near Sapporo, Japan by architect Tadao Ando both conceals and reveals a 40-foot statue of the Buddha in the midst of a rural cemetery.

The designer was tasked with highlighting the scale of the figure — rather than setting it against something smaller, though, he surrounded the sculpture with a gently sloped and plant-populated hillside.

Thus enclosed, only the head is visible from the outside. Visitors have to make their way through a 120-foot tunnel to get the full effect, looking up at the statue from below. An arched concrete rotunda is revealed, and natural light casts down through a void above.

The design intention was to create a vivid spatial sequence,” says Ando, “beginning with the long approach through the tunnel in order to heighten anticipation of the statue, which is invisible from the outside.” Then, “when the hall is reached, visitors look up at the buddha, whose head is encircled by a halo of sky at the end of the tunnel.”

The greenery draped along the new landscape is designed to change with the seasons, blooming in spring and summer, thinning out in the fall then covered with snow in the winter. Visitors coming at different times of year will thus also experience the sculpture in different ways each time.

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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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LED Buddha Vaults & Smart Card Entry: High-Tech Cemetery in Tokyo

05 Mar

[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]

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When visiting a deceased loved one at this Tokyo cemetery, you’ll swipe a smart card upon arrival at the door so that the particular LED Buddha statue representing the correct vault will light up, making it easy to locate on a wall of identical figures.  At Ruriden, a futuristic charnel house belonging to Koukoko-ji temple, cremated remains are kept in storage lockers in this unusually high-tech environment, eliminating the need for loved ones to maintain graves.

Traditionally, each family in Japan would own a plot of land and a stone tomb in a physical cemetery, costing up to $ 40,000 and requiring upkeep and maintenance fees. But as space gets tighter in the urban areas, the prices for those tombs are getting out of control, and cemeteries like Ruriden are stepping in to offer an alternative.

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You may not even be able to touch the glass separating your hand from that little glowing buddha if your relative’s vault happens to be high up on the wall of 2,046 altars, but seeing the statue illuminated can help provide a sense of connection to the gravesite, and you can still access the remains.

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When you visit, the remains will be delivered to a communal vault in the floor via a forklift and conveyer belt system. A digital slideshow puts images of your deceased loved one on display. Ashes are stored in these vaults for 33 years for family visits, before being buried below the Ruriden.

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600 of the plots are currently in use, and 300 more have been reserved by elderly Tokyo residents planning for their own deaths. Vice recently took a tour of the complex and spoke to people shopping for their own high-tech graves. Employees at the cemetery even speculate on the possibility of interactive, holographic representations of dead relatives in the future. Read the whole story at Vice.

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Top two images via Vice/Emiko Jozuka; remaining images via Ruriden.jp

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[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]

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Vacant Buddha: Intricate Paper Sculptures Seem to Disappear

22 Nov

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Deceptively solid-looking when seen from either side, the delicacy of these paper sculptures is revealed if you simply shift your position to view them straight on. Korean artist Ho Yoon Shin coats strips of paper with urethane and attaches them to each other with paper joints to create Buddhas, replicas of famous sculptures and other human figures.

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The translucency of the sculptures is a commentary on what Shin sees as the vacancy of modern society, relating social and political conditions in Korea to Buddhism’s philosophy of emptiness.

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“I am interested in social phenomena and approached the essence of it,” says Shin. “I realized that the closer I approached it, I realized there is no essence. I think it is already intrinsic in me or in you, being judged and evaluated by the inherent values in our things. Therefore, if examined in that viewpoint, I begin to understand why the power group of Korea has wanted to split all kinds of social systems – the right and the left, social classes divided on its economic structure, dominance and subordination, etc.”

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“In the end, it’s a story about the situation and a point where we fill a surface that doesn’t exist… and console and satisfy ourselves.”

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In addition to his human figures, Shin’s paper work includes large-scale installations of highly detailed, curtain-like sheets of paper, including ‘Imegrated Flowers,’ which filled an entire hallway at the Kobe Biennale.

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Mythological Animation Film – Buddha (Hindi)

08 Oct

Watch this animated fim describing the life and teachings of the enlightened Buddha. Click www.rajshri.com to watch more of such Mythology Videos.

I DID NOT MAKE THIS VIDEO!!!! ??????????????????? ??????????????????? ME, ??????????????????? ??????????????????? And Please Subscribe me and my friends at www.youtube.com Spider Man, Iron Man and The hulk is fighting toghether against giant robots! FUNNY!!