The statue would sit on a 17-story building designed as a throne. Lama Zopa Rinpoche is also spiritual director of the Maitreya Project, an ambitious plan to build what backers say would be the world’s largest statue - a 500-foot-high bronze representation of a future Buddha - in northern India by 2010. The Dalai Lama, museums and monasteries have donated the relics to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual leader of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, based in Taos, N.M. Some of the relics were salvaged from statues in Tibet, where they had been enshrined for thousands of years before the Chinese occupation in 1951, tour sponsors said. There are relics of other saints and spiritual masters from the Chinese, Indian and Tibetan traditions.Īlthough tour sponsors acknowledge that claims of relics multiplying and changing their colors have not been scientifically verified, they say there is little doubt that the free public showing this weekend will fascinate people and, in many cases, inspire believers. Also on display, they say, are relics of the Buddha’s disciples, Maudgalyayana, Ananda and Sariputra. Organizers say the display includes relics of Shakyamuni Buddha, known as the Enlightened One, who was born as Siddhartha Gautama 2,500 years ago. 26 and 27 at a Buddhist temple in Santa Ana. After stops in the San Joaquin Valley town of Ceres and in Oakland, the relics will return to Southern California for viewing Feb. Now relics of 30 Buddhist masters, which for thousands of years were hidden in Buddhist temples, shrines and statues in Asia, will be available for public viewing today and Sunday in a Santa Monica church. They speak, too, of miraculous things - of the pearl-like remains of the dead multiplying and changing colors - signs, they say, that those who have prayed near and honored the relics have faith. Devotees speak of receiving blessings and a sense of inner peace. For believers, being in the presence of the 2,500-year-old cremated remains of ancient Buddhist masters is to be in the presence of the masters themselves.
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