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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: I want to start with a question that might sound

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Speaker 1: kind of simple. Why generally do we not build statues

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Speaker 1: of people who are still alive? I know sometimes we do.

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Speaker 1: You've got the Bronze Fonds. Yeah, and Henry Winkler is

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Speaker 1: still out there. And I believe in New Zealand there

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Speaker 1: is a statue of Richard O'Brien as riff Raff from

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Speaker 1: the Rocky Art Picture Show. And of course there's the

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Speaker 1: statue of RoboCop, which I don't know if I knew

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Speaker 1: about this one. No way, maybe that doesn't exist yet.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's only people want there to be a statue

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Speaker 1: of RoboCop in Detroit, or does it exist. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure if that's been realized. In any case, RoboCop lives

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Speaker 1: on in all our hearts forever, so they could never

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Speaker 1: be a statue of him. But even these are fictional characters,

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Speaker 1: even the Richard O'Brien. When is a picture of Richard

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Speaker 1: O'Brien as a fictional character? Yeah, there are a few

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Speaker 1: cases where people build statues of people who are still alive.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't happen that often, and it always strikes me

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Speaker 1: as really just not smart and distasteful. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you get the same feeling, like if you just

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Speaker 1: see a statue of a living person, It's like what, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, because there are a few different factors that

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Speaker 1: coming to pay. First of all, if I'm asking someone

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Speaker 1: or commissioning a statue of myself, there there's something you know,

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Speaker 1: you're just asking for charges of narcissism. And uh, you

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Speaker 1: know you think you're a golden god or something because

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Speaker 1: you're having this large golden version of you erected in town. No,

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Speaker 1: I just think I'm a marble god. Or on the

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Speaker 1: other side too, is we've seen enough. We've seen it.

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Speaker 1: We've seen enough examples of this throughout history, particularly in

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Speaker 1: the fall of the Soviet Union, to know that if

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Speaker 1: there is a statue of you, then that is something

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Speaker 1: that someone can deface or knock down. Uh, it's you're

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Speaker 1: just asking for it. Yeah. I would say. One large

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Speaker 1: exception to what I'm talking about is in like dictatorships,

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Speaker 1: where yeah, there will be statues of a living leader,

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Speaker 1: but I mean, these are examples though, where they should

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Speaker 1: feel bad, but they are removed from the guilt of

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Speaker 1: feeling bad because of the depravity of the system. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But so then you agree with my intuition there is

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Speaker 1: is that the case you You just think, like when

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Speaker 1: you see a statue of a person who's still alive,

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Speaker 1: it's like, what, why would you do that? Yeah? Because

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Speaker 1: the other thing, too is maybe you're gonna have a

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Speaker 1: perfect likeness of that individual, but it also may come

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Speaker 1: off as a little creepy because you're gonna see it

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Speaker 1: like right next to the person, or or it's it's

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Speaker 1: easier to compare the flesh to the statue and realize

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Speaker 1: that the statue is inaccurate. Yeah. So what does the

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Speaker 1: answer there tell us about what purpose statues serve? I

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Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe we can come back to that. I

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Speaker 1: got another weird question. Why are statues considered inherently positive

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Speaker 1: or honorific? Another way of asking this is why do

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Speaker 1: we generally only create statues of people we like? How

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Speaker 1: come we don't generally create statues of people who we

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Speaker 1: think we're evil and destructive or shifty or you know,

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Speaker 1: just not honorable people? And it's one of those things

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Speaker 1: that's so ingrained that it just seems obvious, Like, well, duh.

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Speaker 1: You know, you wouldn't put up a statute to honor

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Speaker 1: a bad person, But why do you assume a statue

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Speaker 1: carries honor with it? You don't assume that about other

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Speaker 1: forms of media. You could make a movie about a

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Speaker 1: bad person and people wouldn't assume that it was honoring

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Speaker 1: that person. You could write a book about a bad

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Speaker 1: person and people wouldn't assume that the book was honoring

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Speaker 1: that person. But if you were to build a statue

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Speaker 1: of that person, people would say, well, why do you

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Speaker 1: like this guy so much? Well, I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of this. I think we can answer a couple of

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Speaker 1: questions here by dealing with with the with the idea

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Speaker 1: of what happens when you just direct a tombstone for someone.

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Speaker 1: You were creating something that is not going to fade.

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Speaker 1: I mean, yes, it's going to fade, but but within

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Speaker 1: the context of a human lifetime, it seems fixed. It

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Speaker 1: seems uh uh, you know, unmovable and incorruptible. And so

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Speaker 1: in to create a statue of an individual is to

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Speaker 1: create an immortal version of them, uh like, impose that

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Speaker 1: person's legacy on physical space right either after their death

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Speaker 1: or you know, in the case of say a mythological

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Speaker 1: figure or a figure of such deep history that they're

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Speaker 1: you know, far removed, like you don't have photos of them,

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Speaker 1: you just have tales of them. It makes them more real,

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Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I I just wonder why. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it might it might be totally an accident of history.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's just a coincidence that Well, okay, so people

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Speaker 1: used to make statues of of leaders who were to

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Speaker 1: be honored, and statues of kings and all that, and

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Speaker 1: we just came to associate statuary with honor and honorific feelings. Well,

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Speaker 1: now I have to say there are of course protective

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Speaker 1: the idea of using horrifying but protect dive entities, say

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Speaker 1: in a tomb or a temple, you can have essentially

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Speaker 1: it's a monster, it's something horrifying, but it's there to

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Speaker 1: ward off evil spirits. Well, right, and that that comes

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Speaker 1: into the religious function of statutory So you've got statues

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Speaker 1: that where yeah, I was going to say that you

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Speaker 1: can imagine religious areas where people have statues of demons

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Speaker 1: and other unwelcome supernatural entities, either for instructive purposes, or

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Speaker 1: for protective purposes, you know, apotropaic magic um, or just

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Speaker 1: to be scary. Uh So, yeah, you can see religious

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Speaker 1: reasons why people put up statues of things judged to

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Speaker 1: be evil. But but could you imagine a scenario where

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Speaker 1: someone might say, look, we're not putting up a statue

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Speaker 1: of Richard Nixon, but we'll put up multiple Richard Nixon

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Speaker 1: statues to protect the sacred ground, you know, like like

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Speaker 1: purely protective evils. Uh if you will write you what

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Speaker 1: you bring up? Yet again, is this assumption if I

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Speaker 1: made a statue of Richard Nixon, people would assume I

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Speaker 1: liked him. People would assume I thought he was a

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Speaker 1: good guy. Right. Would not be the case if I

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Speaker 1: wrote a book about him or made a movie about him,

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Speaker 1: I mean, depending on what the contents were. Right, And again,

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Speaker 1: this is assuming it's just a statue of him and

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Speaker 1: he's not being say, crushed under the foot of a

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Speaker 1: Hindu deity or something like that. Exactly right. That's another

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Speaker 1: great image because I think what we're talking about here,

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Speaker 1: and most of these examples, it's it's not a statue

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Speaker 1: of an individual of doing something as much as is

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Speaker 1: a statue of the individual, just their identity, their presence,

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Speaker 1: their existence. Yeah, and so maybe for some inherent reasons

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Speaker 1: we haven't figured out, or maybe for reasons of historical

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Speaker 1: accident or whatever, statue or I think does have a

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Speaker 1: religious connotation, and therefore it's no surprise that some of

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Speaker 1: the grandest statues in the world, of course are religious. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you look at it at a list of the

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Speaker 1: largest statues currently in the world, most of them are

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Speaker 1: going to be religious in scope. You'll find a few

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Speaker 1: historic individuals in there, but really, like the top the

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Speaker 1: top ten list, are mostly Buddhists. And today we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be talking about one of the grandest Buddhas that you

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Speaker 1: have statutes that you'll find out there, and that is

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Speaker 1: the uh Lissan Grant, a giant Buddha or the Grand

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Speaker 1: Buddha located in southern Shishwan Province in southwest China. So

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Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that you wanted to do

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Speaker 1: this episode, Robert, What what what? What was it that

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Speaker 1: drew you to the Leshan Buddha. Well, I'd seen images

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Speaker 1: of it before, and weirdly and weirdly enough to just

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Speaker 1: throw in an unintended plug for another podcast but I

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Speaker 1: was in the car and uh, I was listening to

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Speaker 1: the Wow in the World podcast, which is uh an

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Speaker 1: NPR science education podcast for children, and they had like

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Speaker 1: a kid throwing in a quick fact about something that

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Speaker 1: they learned on a trip. Right, so it's like a

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Speaker 1: you know, a kid on the street kind of situation.

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Speaker 1: And the kid mentioned the the leshaan giant Buddha, and

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Speaker 1: uh and it kind of reminded me of its existence

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Speaker 1: and and and one of the cool facts about it

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Speaker 1: that we'll get to in a bit and uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: And then I started looking into it a little more

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Speaker 1: and said, hey, well there's a whole episode here we

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Speaker 1: should talk about the lean giant Buddha. So if you

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Speaker 1: are at a computer right now and you are listening

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Speaker 1: to this episode where you can google something, you should

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Speaker 1: probably go ahead and google a picture of it right

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Speaker 1: to try to have this in your mind if you've

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Speaker 1: never seen it before. If you can't do that, that's okay.

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Speaker 1: We'll try to describe it for you. Yeah, we'll definitely

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Speaker 1: have some images of it on the landing page for

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Speaker 1: this episode is Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: But it looks like a giant Buddha has has carved

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Speaker 1: out a niche in a mountain and is seated there

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Speaker 1: within the mountain. So basically the the Buddha is a mountain.

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Speaker 1: The mountain is the Buddha to to steal like a

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Speaker 1: common slogan from the region, and the Buddha is literally

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Speaker 1: made out of the mountain. Its carved out of the

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Speaker 1: side of the mountain. But in a way that you

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Speaker 1: know when when you when you I think for a

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Speaker 1: lot of Western it's just when you think of something

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Speaker 1: carved out of mountain, you think of our more local examples.

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Speaker 1: You think Amount Rushmore, maybe you think of Stone Mountain

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Speaker 1: here in Georgia, or you think of Crazy Horse, right.

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Speaker 1: But this one, this is this one feels a lot

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Speaker 1: different from any of those examples because it's it does

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Speaker 1: feel it almost feels like there was a Buddha in

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Speaker 1: the mountain and they just carved it out, like it

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Speaker 1: was waiting there for for all of this. Uh, this

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Speaker 1: sculpture work to free it. Absolutely, those other things you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: like Mount Rushmore feel very much imposed on the landscape.

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Speaker 1: There were a thing laid over the landscape. And I

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Speaker 1: feel like the Buddha in in Lashan is either it's

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Speaker 1: like it emerged from the landscape or is being absorbed

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Speaker 1: by the landscape. It almost feels like, yeah, you found it,

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Speaker 1: Like it's the like like it's a fossil Buddha. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a great metaphor, dude, it is very much like that.

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Speaker 1: One thing we should say, though, is Okay, so you

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Speaker 1: imagine something that's carved out of a mountain or uh,

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Speaker 1: or might be like a fossil, you're probably not thinking

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Speaker 1: very big. This thing is big. It's huge. Yeah. It

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Speaker 1: is seventy one or two hundred and thirty three feet tall,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's you know, it's in a seated position.

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Speaker 1: It's not standing. I actually I don't think I ran

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Speaker 1: across any estimates on how tall this Buddha would be

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Speaker 1: if it were standing full heights. Somehow should have done

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Speaker 1: the math on that missed opportunity. If the Ghostbusters were to,

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Speaker 1: you know, charge it with enough ectoplasm and make it

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Speaker 1: walk around. Yeah that but that's somebody else's research project.

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Speaker 1: Will leave them to it. Now. The other remarkable thing

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Speaker 1: about it is that this is a this is a

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Speaker 1: very old statue. Uh. This was this was a Tang

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Speaker 1: dynasty construction. So that's twelve hundred years ago, and it

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Speaker 1: is the largest stone Buddha in the world, and currently

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Speaker 1: it's the tallest statue in the world. UH. Number one,

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Speaker 1: by the way, is China's Spring Temple Buddha at a

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Speaker 1: towering one ty eight ms or four hundred and twenty feet. Now,

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Speaker 1: how many of those top twenty or so are Richard

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Speaker 1: Nixon's um, Not none of them actually, but several of

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Speaker 1: them are Buddhas or some of Bodhisatva's And I think

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Speaker 1: in one particular particular note is to fame Chinese emperors.

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Speaker 1: But but also the vast majority of them are from

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Speaker 1: are from recent times. UH. Of the taller statues in

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Speaker 1: the world, all of them were completed in the century.

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Speaker 1: The Grand Buddha, however, again was finished in eight three CE.

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Speaker 1: And this thing looks old. As we said, it's like

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Speaker 1: a fossil. So it's a cliff coming straight out of

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Speaker 1: the river, just shooting straight up out of the Dadu

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Speaker 1: River and away from the it's like a red stone cliff.

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Speaker 1: You can see this orange tinge in the white uh.

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Speaker 1: And then back away from the cliff, there is this recession, UM.

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Speaker 1: And within the recession is I don't know, you don't

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Speaker 1: really see a throne or anything might be hidden back

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Speaker 1: there behind all of the growth that's come out over

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Speaker 1: the years. But you you do see the figure of

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Speaker 1: the Buddha seated with his knees spread apart, his back

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Speaker 1: very straight, and his hands resting on his knees, and

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Speaker 1: the entire statue, like we said, is carved into the

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Speaker 1: side of the mountain. We're seeding away from the cliff face.

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Speaker 1: And so the Buddha is looking out over the river

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Speaker 1: as if he's sort of like lording over the waters,

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Speaker 1: and the waters are rushing by just underneath his feet.

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Speaker 1: How would you describe his face, Robert, I would say

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Speaker 1: it's very calm. It's calm, serene, almost disinterested in a

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Speaker 1: way that he does remind me of a Y. M. C.

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Speaker 1: A lifeguard, Like he's watching over the waters and and

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure how interested he is in mean, not drowning. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is not one of the laughing Buddhas. And we'll

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Speaker 1: get into exactly what kind of Buddha he is in

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Speaker 1: a minute, but certainly that just the scale of this

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Speaker 1: thing is amazing from the photos. I have not been

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Speaker 1: to see this in person, and I would love to

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Speaker 1: hear from any of our listeners out there who have

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Speaker 1: because it is a huge tourist attraction. Uh, People traveling

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Speaker 1: to the area, you know, go out of their way

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Speaker 1: just to see this and the surrounding historic temple and

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Speaker 1: even you know natural attractions in the area. But you

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Speaker 1: just you look at this and you just see how

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Speaker 1: small the individuals are and in comparison to the feet

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Speaker 1: to the toes of the statute. Right, there are people

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Speaker 1: standing on the base where the Buddhist feet are and

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Speaker 1: they're not even as tall as the Buddhas sandal. Right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, I think for Western audiences a specially, especially

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Speaker 1: for American audiences, Like when we think of a giant statue,

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Speaker 1: of course we think of the Statue of Liberty. But

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Speaker 1: then how big would the statue of Liberty be compared

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Speaker 1: to the Sun Buddha. Well, so there are multiple ways

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Speaker 1: you can measure the Statue of Liberty. Now, if you

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Speaker 1: measure the full thing, like with the base up to

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Speaker 1: the top of the torch, it's bigger than the Leshan Buddha.

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Speaker 1: But if you just look at the copper part of

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Speaker 1: the statue from her heel to the top of her head,

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Speaker 1: Lady Liberty is just over a hundred and eleven feet,

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Speaker 1: so if she put her arm down, you could stand

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Speaker 1: one Lady Liberty on the shoulders of another one and

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Speaker 1: still not be as tall as the Lashan Buddha. Now

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Speaker 1: it's it's always difficult to gauge these things though, just

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Speaker 1: as a viewer, because you see Lady Liberty up there,

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Speaker 1: you know, No, you don't see any humans really in

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Speaker 1: reference to it, unless you're dealing with the Ghostbusters and

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Speaker 1: Ghostbusters too. Otherwise it's easy to lose lose, you know,

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Speaker 1: scope of what it's scale is, whereas with the Lassan

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Speaker 1: Buddha you tend to see individuals at its base, so

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Speaker 1: you have kind of a grounding and how big it

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Speaker 1: appears to be. So this is supposed to be a Buddha, Robert,

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Speaker 1: tell me about the Buddha, all right, Well, yeah, we

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Speaker 1: should break down exactly what a buddha is. So wait,

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Speaker 1: I thought you should say something like, I can't tell

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Speaker 1: you about the Buddha. Uh, yeah, I'm sure there's some

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Speaker 1: class like like, you know, if someone goes to tell

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Speaker 1: you about the Buddha, don't let them tell you about

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Speaker 1: the Buddha sort of if you meet the Buddha kill

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Speaker 1: the Buddha kind of a thing. But there are different Buddhists,

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Speaker 1: and that's an important thing to note. And it's easy

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Speaker 1: to miss, to to not be aware of if you

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Speaker 1: just kind of you see statues and you assume these

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Speaker 1: are all statues of the same individual, historic or mythical,

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Speaker 1: and it's just different artistic takes. And there are a

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Speaker 1: number of different artistic takes on these Buddhists. But for starters,

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Speaker 1: you have what's known as the historical Buddha, Siddharta Gottama,

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Speaker 1: who lived in the fifth century b c. Exact century

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Speaker 1: kind of varies depending on you know, who's telling, but

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Speaker 1: this would have been ancient India. And the story is

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Speaker 1: that he was a prince, you know, lived a life

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Speaker 1: of luxury, and then he began to behold the you know,

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Speaker 1: the sorrow of the world, the suffering in the world,

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Speaker 1: and he abandoned his riches. He became a monk in

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Speaker 1: order to seek enlightenment, and uh his teachings then spread

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Speaker 1: throughout most of Asia and the centuries to follow. Now,

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Speaker 1: interestingly enough, it actually declined in India self during the

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Speaker 1: Middle Ages with the rise of Islam, but it flourished elsewhere,

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Speaker 1: including in China, where it made its way in there

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Speaker 1: around a hundred b C. And subsequently became an integral

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Speaker 1: part of Chinese culture, and Buddhism today remains the fourth

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Speaker 1: largest religion in the world. Now, I think I have

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Speaker 1: to understand that throughout history, at different times, the adoption

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Speaker 1: of Buddhism in China has been a controversial thing, right,

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Speaker 1: Like there were times when when Chinese ruling dynasties were

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Speaker 1: trying to enforce other beliefs, like they might say that

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Speaker 1: people need to be Taoist or people need to be Confucian. Right, yes, certainly,

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Speaker 1: because when you when you look at the history of China,

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Speaker 1: of course, you have essentially three key world views that

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Speaker 1: are you know, getting into the mix. There you have

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Speaker 1: you have Buddhism, you have Taoism, and you have Confucianism

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Speaker 1: and UH. And it's kind of like a continual you know,

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Speaker 1: cocktail to what degree or these uh these mesh together

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Speaker 1: in an in an individual time, in an individual region.

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Speaker 1: Now to come back to the Shawan Buddha that what

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Speaker 1: makes this interesting is that the first Chinese Buddhist temple

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Speaker 1: was built in Sechuan Province on the summits of Mount Emmy,

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Speaker 1: and this is the very area, the very region in

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Speaker 1: which the Grand Buddha was carved. Now, maybe we should

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Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we come back we

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Speaker 1: can get a little bit into the history of how

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Speaker 1: this Grand Buddha was constructed more than years ago. Thank alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. So, uh, there's an origin story here, as

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Speaker 1: there always is. Yeah, and maybe we should say as

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Speaker 1: as many origins if you go back far enough, there's

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Speaker 1: a flood in the story somewhere, except in this case,

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Speaker 1: it's more of a pattern of flooding, right, and this

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Speaker 1: is a historical fact that's not just part of the mythology.

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Speaker 1: The central and southwest region of China is prone to

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Speaker 1: lots of flooding, right. Yeah. I mean we ended up

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Speaker 1: discussing some of this in our Great Flood episode. We

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Speaker 1: talked about Chinese the Chinese variant of the grate flood

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Speaker 1: myth and the importance of of water management and manipulation

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Speaker 1: in Chinese history. Yeah. So it's like a it's a

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Speaker 1: humid uh I think subtropical climate, but that they'll have

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Speaker 1: monsoon seasons, the rains come in and there there will

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Speaker 1: be heavy rains that cause flooding in these planes areas.

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Speaker 1: Refresh me a little bit on the on the Chinese

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Speaker 1: flood myth Robert. Oh, well, you're talking about the story

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Speaker 1: of You the Great, Yeah, where essentially you just have

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Speaker 1: you have this this flood that occurs and uh and

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Speaker 1: who is going to who's going to deal with it?

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Speaker 1: How are we going to to solve this problem? Instead

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Speaker 1: of the creation of an arc or you know, a

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Speaker 1: great boat, you have You the Great who uses uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the knowledge of canal systems and drainage systems

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Speaker 1: as a way to to manage the flooding. Oh, that's

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Speaker 1: a much better solution than a boat, right, Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: like works for more than one group of people. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think so. I think there's probably something culturally telling

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Speaker 1: about about that as well. Like it's a it's a

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Speaker 1: very it's a particularly Chinese uh take on the problem,

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Speaker 1: but also ties in with very real world issues of

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Speaker 1: the day, which would have been um, you know, seasonal flooding. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So there is seasonal flooding in this area that sometimes

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Speaker 1: the rivers will swell and this can be a danger

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Speaker 1: to the people who work in the in or around

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Speaker 1: the river. Um. And this this ties into where the

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Speaker 1: Buddha came from. That's right, So that the origin story,

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Speaker 1: the basic version goes as follows. You have a Buddhist

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Speaker 1: monk named Hi Tongue and he conceives this this project

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Speaker 1: around seven thirteen CE. So his idea is, look, we

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Speaker 1: have we have really turbulent waters out here on the

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Speaker 1: Dadu River. Uh, it's really rough on on boatman navigation.

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Speaker 1: People are drowning. Uh, it's it's it's influenced by by

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Speaker 1: these seasonal floods. If we're we're to build a Buddha here,

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Speaker 1: then that would bring like fortune to the area, Like

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Speaker 1: that would bring a calming influence on on these turvy

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Speaker 1: went waters where you ultimately have the confluence of of

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Speaker 1: three different rivers, the Nanjang, the dad and the Queen

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Speaker 1: Ye rivers. Yeah, And in reading about this, I came

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Speaker 1: across what appears to be some kind of popular legend

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Speaker 1: about Hi Tong's quest to get the Buddha build This

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Speaker 1: was good, so I had to repeat it, but I

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Speaker 1: want to, but I want to stress this is the

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Speaker 1: best I can synthesize from scattered and discrepant telling. So

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Speaker 1: this is probably probably legendary, might not even be an

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Speaker 1: old legend. Who knows if this was created recently, but

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Speaker 1: here's what people are saying. So Hi Tong in this

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Speaker 1: story knew that it would cost a lot of money

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Speaker 1: to get the Buddha built, and he traveled far and

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Speaker 1: wide soliciting alms for the construction, and slowly, over time

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Speaker 1: he built up a fund. He managed to get together

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Speaker 1: enough money for the stone works and the carving. But

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Speaker 1: at some point in the project, Hi Tong was called

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Speaker 1: to an audience with a corrupt government official with a

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Speaker 1: Richard Nixon, you know who told him Hi Tong, it's

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Speaker 1: time to hand over the funds, and Hi Tong said,

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Speaker 1: I'd rather give up my eyes than give up the

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Speaker 1: Great Buddha. And when the corrupt official pressed him to

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Speaker 1: give him the money, Hi Tong gouged out his own eyes,

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Speaker 1: or one of his own eyes and threw them at

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Speaker 1: the officials feet, and supposedly this got the guy to

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Speaker 1: leave him alone. Now again with my morning. I've seen

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Speaker 1: various versions of this story told and retold across sources,

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Speaker 1: but I can't locate an authoritative original source from this.

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to file this under probably legendary, whether

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Speaker 1: it's an old legend, or a recent creation is unclear,

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Speaker 1: and I think that even if it is, even if

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Speaker 1: it is a recent addition to the legend, uh, this

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Speaker 1: will be something that ties into our further discussions of

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Speaker 1: the Buddha here in a bit. Okay, now, earlier I

405
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Speaker 1: talked to what we mentioned sud hard to got him

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Speaker 1: as the historic Buddha, and I alluded to the existence

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Speaker 1: of other Buddhas that are that are important as well.

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Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and get that out of the way. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is not a statue the grand Buddha here is

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Speaker 1: not a statue of Gottama. So it's not trying to

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Speaker 1: be a depiction of that historical guy. Correct. So while

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Speaker 1: Gottama is the historic Buddha, Buddhism recognized as many different Buddhists.

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Speaker 1: For instance, in uh their Veda Buddhism, there twenty seven

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Speaker 1: Buddhist who preceded Gotama. Then you also have other important

415
00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:26,160
Speaker 1: Buddhis like the medicine Buddha is tremendously important. If you've

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Speaker 1: ever been to the the met in New York, in

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Speaker 1: their Asian section, they have an enormous mural on the

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Speaker 1: wall and it depicts the medicine Buddha and then we

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Speaker 1: have the Buddha that is actually depicted here, and that

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Speaker 1: is my Trea, the Buddha of the future. Oh boy, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a really exciting Buddha. And some of you

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Speaker 1: might remember some mention of my Trea from the self

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Speaker 1: Embalming Buddhist Monks episode we did a while back, and

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Speaker 1: that that has to do with a Japanese practice, but

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Speaker 1: it also involved my Trea. So according to some traditions,

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Speaker 1: my Trea is going to come to Earth five point

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Speaker 1: six billion years in the future. And until then, whoa

428
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:12,760
Speaker 1: whoa five point six billions. Yes, is there's still gonna

429
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: be an Earth in five point six billion years, there's

430
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: gonna be something that my Treya can visit. So I

431
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:21,439
Speaker 1: don't know, you can go kind of sci fi crazy

432
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 1: with this in a minute, like maybe we're all living

433
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 1: on a on a spaceship a colony ship at that point,

434
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:28,920
Speaker 1: but my trayer will find us. That's that's my read

435
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: on it, well the future exactly. So until he's needed,

436
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 1: he's gonna reside in the in in a in a

437
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: in a heaven, a sort of a a Buddhist heaven

438
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:43,239
Speaker 1: that's set aside from my reality and h and you

439
00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 1: can sort of think of him as a Buddha messiah. Yeah,

440
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: I suppose, and that he'll he'll eventually bring Dharma back

441
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,119
Speaker 1: to a far future world that is mostly forgotten it.

442
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:55,720
Speaker 1: So it's pretty exciting. My trey of factors into a

443
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:58,280
Speaker 1: number of different artistic depictions. So if you go to

444
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 1: a museum of am zem of of Buddhist art or

445
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: or or Asian art, there's a very good chance you

446
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 1: will encounter my trea at least a few times. What

447
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 1: is the most commonly depicted Buddha? Do you know? You

448
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 1: know it's gonna it's gonna depend. I think, like I've

449
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 1: I have to admit that when I was when I

450
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:19,200
Speaker 1: was younger, I definitely fall into the category of thinking

451
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:21,119
Speaker 1: there was just a Buddha, and you would see of

452
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 1: sometimes Buddha is is, you know, fat and happy, and

453
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: sometimes Buddha is starved and and kind of a solemn looking. Uh.

454
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: But they're gonna be They're gonna be different emphasis and

455
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 1: different cultures. And then sometimes things we meant casually think

456
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 1: of as being Buddhas are actually bodhisattvas, which is kind

457
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 1: of you know, a notch lower or and then sometimes

458
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: their their depictions of important you know, monk figures. But

459
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:50,919
Speaker 1: I know that you do encounter my Trea, the medicine Buddha,

460
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: and and uh, the historic Buddha got him a quite

461
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 1: a bit, so the Grand Buddha. Here this depiction of

462
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: my Trea. It it is eventually completed ninety years after

463
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 1: it started. By that point, Hi Tong has has died.

464
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 1: And uh, and the story about the blinding, even if

465
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: that didn't happen exactly as as the story indicates, it

466
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 1: does seem that there were there were points where funding

467
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: stalled out, where work ceased, and thus this uh, this

468
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: long process of actually finishing the statue. But of course,

469
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,199
Speaker 1: now that it's finished, we really do have kind of

470
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:31,200
Speaker 1: uh would you call it a sort of wonder of

471
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 1: the world on our hands. Yeah. I mean that's important

472
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: thing to keep in mind of when you because we

473
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:37,919
Speaker 1: often think of what that the Seven Wonders of the

474
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:41,120
Speaker 1: world um ancient or the ancient world. And of course

475
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:45,120
Speaker 1: they were based on knowledge of the ancient world by

476
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,880
Speaker 1: by individuals at the time, which tended to exclude anything

477
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 1: that was happening in Asia. It was it was confined

478
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 1: to a different region of the world and in a

479
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:57,400
Speaker 1: number of those things aren't even around anymore. They're even

480
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:00,080
Speaker 1: questions about whether some of them existed to begin in

481
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 1: with UM, I have long thought we should just we

482
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: should do an episode or a series of episodes on

483
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: each of the seven Wonders of the Ancient World and

484
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: discuss like what they what they were, slash are, what

485
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: happened to them and UH and and why people were

486
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: so invested in them at at the time. But but

487
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,120
Speaker 1: that's for another episode. Yeah, but if you were to

488
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: to actually take in the Wonders of the world and

489
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: UH and do a complete you know, overview and take

490
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: in all regions of the Earth, I feel like the

491
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 1: Lea Shawn Budda would would would have to be on

492
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 1: there because it's a tremendous work of sculpture and the

493
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: body content actually contains a drainage system to prevent weathering

494
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, So there are spiral coils and

495
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: cross drainage systems like built into its surface that helped

496
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 1: to drain water away from it. And again this is

497
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: because this is an area that is UM is frequented

498
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: by seasonal flooding, tremendous rainfall is a very temporary climate. Okay, well,

499
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: if high Tong Skull was to calm the angry river

500
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 1: gods and put a Buddha in there to pacify the

501
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: hateful waters of the river in the rain season, did

502
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 1: it work. Well? That's one of the really fascinating aspects

503
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: of this story is that, according to too many, it

504
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 1: did work. Now, how did it work? Well, That's that's

505
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 1: where it gets interesting. That if it actually worked in

506
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: calming the waters beneath its gaze, the likely reason for

507
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: this is probably because you had over the decades, you

508
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: have all of this excavation, and this is dumping so

509
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: much surplus rock into the river hollows below that it

510
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: actually has an effect on the flow of the river.

511
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 1: Like you're you're remaking the mountain, your remake, You're remaking

512
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: the environment surrounding the mountain, and in doing so, you're

513
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: remaking the river. You're sort of inadvertently um altering the

514
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: flow of the river. Huh. Now, I have some skepticism

515
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: there because the river is huge. I mean, it's if

516
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: you see pictures of it as a gigantic waterway. So

517
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 1: I would think it would take a great amount of

518
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:10,880
Speaker 1: deposits to change the river fundamentally. I can believe more

519
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: that it would change like local areas of the river. Yeah. Um,

520
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 1: And I think that when I think the individuals that

521
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 1: are making that that argument are are definitely focusing like

522
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 1: on the filling in of the hollows within the river

523
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: and and affecting the very localized nature of it. I

524
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 1: think if you get into anything beyond that, then you're

525
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 1: getting into kind of magical mythic thinking. You know, we

526
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,719
Speaker 1: built a statue so big that the surplus rock, you know,

527
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: change the earth. All right. So when we first started

528
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: out this episode, we asked the question why would you

529
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: build a statue? And the best answer I think we

530
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:46,719
Speaker 1: would come up with is you want you want this

531
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 1: idea or this person to u to last forever, to

532
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: to live forever. And so in building the Grand Buddha,

533
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 1: the ideas, yeah, this is gonna be around for a

534
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: long time. Maybe it's even gonna be long enough, uh

535
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 1: that the actual Maitrea can visit it and say, hey,

536
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: that's me up there. But as it turns as the

537
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: I don't think the statute is gonna make it five

538
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 1: billion years. I don't. I don't think it is either,

539
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: because because that's the thing about any kind of stone work,

540
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 1: any kind of sculpture, is that, yes, they do tend

541
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 1: to last longer than living human beings. But in is

542
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: when you when you start having this thing live within

543
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: geologic time. Uh, you know, don't expect a whole lot

544
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 1: because you have all of these eroding effects in the

545
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 1: natural world, and they're not going to leave your statue

546
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: alone just because it's not technically a mountain anymore. Right,

547
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: I mean, there used to be continents in places where

548
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: there now are not continents, and vice versa. Uh. The earth,

549
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: the face of the Earth is constantly changing, and so

550
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: while a stone statue might last a very long time,

551
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 1: probably much longer than many other creations of humankind, it's

552
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 1: not gonna last forever. Right. You're gonna have you gonna

553
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: have wind, You're gonna have rain, You're gonna have also

554
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: an issue with the the sculptures are gonna have you know,

555
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: plant life growing in and on it, in it around it,

556
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: which I would now say is one of the coolest

557
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: features of the Grand Buddha. You see pictures of it.

558
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: It's not only receding into the mountains, so in this

559
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 1: hollow in the cliff face, but it's also got all

560
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: this green coming out around it, So it's being absorbed

561
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: by the landscape in more way than one. It's sinking

562
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: into the mountain or emerging from a recess in the mountain,

563
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: but it's also emerging from the biosphere almost or sinking

564
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: into the biosphere. Oh yeah, I mean it adds the natural,

565
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 1: natural wonder of it. But at the same level, it's

566
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 1: kind of like having a bunch of the English ivy

567
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 1: grow up the side of your house. On one level

568
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: it looks really nice, but on the other you have

569
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: plants like growing on and into your your stonework. Um.

570
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: Now another important factor here, as we mentioned how many

571
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: a lot of people go to it as a popular

572
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: tourist destination. Uh I was reading in a Lonely Planet

573
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: guide for China that if you're gonna visit the Grand Buddha,

574
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: it's best not to even try to go on a

575
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: weekend or a holiday because the stairs around it becomes

576
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: so packed with tourists that you can't even move. It

577
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: just comes to a standstill. Now, of course, anytime you've

578
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: got lots of people visiting something, that's going to be

579
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: a risk to the preservation of the people touching things. People.

580
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: Hopefully they're not gonna be able to touch too much

581
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 1: of it here because you can't get out there and

582
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: climb on his nose. Um. But yeah, I mean somehow

583
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: exposure to people, I think it's gonna start wearing at

584
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: you and human erosion takes place. Another thing I just

585
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 1: have to mention now that you you talked about tourists

586
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 1: surviving is I watched a homemade video on YouTube that

587
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: I found of a family visiting the Buddha at a

588
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: time when there was intense flooding in the river just

589
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 1: under it, so like the waters were rushing by and

590
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: they were rising up to just below the platform where

591
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: the Buddhist feet are, and this family paid somebody to

592
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: get them out to the statue even though it was

593
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: dangerous weather and it was flooding, And there's this video

594
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 1: on YouTube of them just walking around with almost nobody there. Yeah. Yeah,

595
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 1: that is apparently not the usual scene on a on

596
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: a weekend at the Grand Buddha. Now, on top of

597
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: natural erosion human erosion, there's also the added threat of pollution,

598
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 1: which will we'll get into a little bit more in

599
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: a bit. But yeah, you have with the with the

600
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 1: with the the rise and continued rise of industrialized human civilization.

601
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:29,959
Speaker 1: You're gonna have both natural and man made the features

602
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: of the earth that are going to be affected by

603
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 1: by by all the resulting pollution. Yeah, in particular, there's

604
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: a there's like a blackening that occurs on some of

605
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: these statues. So you'll have your you know, your your

606
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: your statue of of of a Buddha, and then over time,

607
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: like there's like a blackening of the nose as if

608
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: you know, as if the nose is rotting away or something,

609
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 1: and you know, at the very least it's it's not

610
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: maybe not the artist's intention or the for the sculpture.

611
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: I hate to see that happen to this great old

612
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: work of art. But that's also kind of cool. So

613
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:06,479
Speaker 1: I was, I was reading about preservation UH for this

614
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 1: UH for this Buddha and other like sacred sites, various

615
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: UH sculptures in China. There was an article titled Conservation

616
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road, Proceedings of an

617
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: International Conference on Conservation of Grotto Sites, and this was

618
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 1: These were symposium proceedings by one Neville Agnew. This was

619
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: published in nineteen seven, so it's a it's a slightly

620
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: older overview, but it still has a lot of important details.

621
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: So in particular concerning the Grand Buddha, he mentions that

622
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: that this sculpture benefited from multiple restorations over the years,

623
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: so we're not really seeing the original version of it, right,

624
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: That's something to keep in mind. So just going back

625
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: to the earliest traces that that he reverences in his article,

626
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 1: So if you go back to the Queen dynasty, that's

627
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 1: the sixty six through nineteen twelve documents indicated the sculpture

628
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 1: was heavily damaged at the time, so it had cavities

629
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: in the face, kind of like the Sphinx or something. Yeah,

630
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: it was just it had it had you know, the

631
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:08,920
Speaker 1: upkeep had not prevented the face from kind of crumbling

632
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: apart in places. And then by the time you come

633
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: to the Republic of China era that's nineteen twelve and

634
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: ninety nine, photos show that it had been inaccurately restored.

635
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:22,479
Speaker 1: So they fixed this is a problem where their holes

636
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: in the face. Then you fix the face and well,

637
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: now the face looks a little different than it did before.

638
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: Then by the nineteen sixties you have significant maintenance that's

639
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: taking place. It's altering the nose, the eyes of the

640
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:37,240
Speaker 1: mouth and the lower jaw of the Buddha, and Agnew

641
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: argues that in light of all of this, it might

642
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,359
Speaker 1: perhaps be better not to restore the Buddha at all.

643
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: Like if you were if you're essentially each time you're

644
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 1: restoring it, you're kind of making it a little different,

645
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: You're making it new each time. Like are you actually

646
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:55,839
Speaker 1: preserving an ancient statue or you are you, you know,

647
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: keeping up a modern statue that's sort of based on

648
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: the base of something old. Yeah, I think that's a

649
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: common question in restoration. Actually, I mean you're always going

650
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 1: to have deterioration, and is it better to allow things

651
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 1: to deteriorate and let people see them in that state

652
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:19,319
Speaker 1: or two falsely alter them to restore them. Well, you know,

653
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 1: I mean which is more authentic? Yeah, Like, for instance,

654
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: in the West, Uh, the Parthenon is an example of this.

655
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: So the Parthenon is severely damaged, but there's there's a

656
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 1: history to that damage. You can and I mean it's

657
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: a fascinating history in terms of who has who has

658
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: ownership at a given time, the very the violence that's

659
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 1: been that that has occurred there, etcetera. We could get

660
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 1: into the whole history and another another podcast. But but

661
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: there is, you know, an ongoing discussion. Well, do you

662
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,320
Speaker 1: do you completely restore the Parthenon and then create create

663
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 1: this kind of new thing that is based on the

664
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: old model and certainly an attempt to to rebuild the

665
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 1: old Parthenon? Or do you maintain what's currently there and

666
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 1: tell the story of how we got there. My my

667
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: answer would be anybody out there listening, if I can

668
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 1: make the decision, you believe it how it is, but

669
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: then you build a copy of it somewhere else. So

670
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 1: like with the parthen On, we've got the Parthenon in

671
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: Nashville tells yes. And I think that's not a bad approach.

672
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: You know, you you you let it be as it is,

673
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:24,439
Speaker 1: and let time take it and let's see what time

674
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: has done do it, but then you do your best

675
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: to create a model of what it would have been

676
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 1: like in another place. Now, I will point out that

677
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 1: with the Grand Buddha in the late ninety nineties, you

678
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 1: did see an increased focus on the best ways to

679
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: restore the Buddha, but do so in ways that we're

680
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: both scientifically and historically sound, So essentially reaching the point

681
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 1: where you realize, Okay, what can we do that will

682
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 1: you know, maintain what we have, help protect it, restore

683
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: areas that are damaged, but also be true to the

684
00:36:55,520 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 1: history of the sculpture. So in uh intwo thousand one,

685
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 1: according to to Reuter's News, there was actually a two

686
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 1: fifty million one or the thirty three point six million

687
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: restoration project that took place at the Buddha. But by

688
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, the nose it actually blackened again due

689
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:19,240
Speaker 1: to pollution, and concerns over pollution actually prompted local government,

690
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 1: the local government to shut down factories and power plants

691
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: close to the statue to help maintain it, which I

692
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:29,439
Speaker 1: think is a positive movement, like people realizing, look, if

693
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 1: we we have to we have to actually cut down

694
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,279
Speaker 1: on the we have to tackle the pollution problem if

695
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 1: we we want these these artifacts to to remain presentable.

696
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 1: I feel like that is not usually the solution you

697
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:47,840
Speaker 1: hear is shutting down heavy industry to protect uh, you know,

698
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:52,720
Speaker 1: heritage monuments or or the environment. Well, uh, the Reuter's article,

699
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: you know, touches on the fact that this, you know,

700
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 1: this was not an isolated problem. Was the state was

701
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 1: encountering this with with numerous you know, sacred and important

702
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:05,839
Speaker 1: historical sites, various shrines, etcetera. But hey, it's still there.

703
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,640
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's still open, and it is a popular

704
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: touristist destination. And based on what I was reading, you know,

705
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,879
Speaker 1: you can spend a good half day there looking at

706
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 1: an additional sites, temples, and the natural environment is is

707
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,479
Speaker 1: supposedly a really pleasant as well. Yeah, if you see

708
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: pictures of it, one of the things you'll notice is

709
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: this tiny narrow staircase carved into the cliff side beside

710
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: the Buddha going up the side of it, So I

711
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,879
Speaker 1: guess people can get up higher to be near its face. Um,

712
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:37,560
Speaker 1: and it. I mean, one thing that's clear is how

713
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: many people want to come see this, this beautiful work

714
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: of art. But also they're so tiny and they look

715
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: so precarious when you see these long shots of the

716
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: giant Buddha. Not that the Buddha would do this, but

717
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:52,240
Speaker 1: you can imagine it would just sort of like swing

718
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,320
Speaker 1: its hand up and like knock hundreds of people in

719
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: the river. Well, you know, you can't help but think

720
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: of that when you see a colossal stone tighten uh

721
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 1: in the lightness of a man. All Right, We're gonna

722
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:06,360
Speaker 1: take one more break and we come back. I just

723
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 1: have a few additional thoughts about, to a certain extent,

724
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 1: the Grand Buddha, but also just this idea of of

725
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: remaking the earth and then what happens when we do so.

726
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: I think one of the most compelling aspects of the

727
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: gram Buddha is that we see the mountain transformed into

728
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 1: a human lightness, and in doing so there are all

729
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 1: these ramifications to the natural environment. So there's the the

730
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: alleged alteration of the river, the alteration of drainage on

731
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 1: the mountain, and of course you know, these are just

732
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: small and specific examples of what human beings have done

733
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: just across the UH, the anthropathy and epoch. The idea

734
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: that since the rise of of of agricultural really but

735
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:52,840
Speaker 1: certainly in the industrial age as well, we have just

736
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 1: reshaped the earth and in doing so we have changed

737
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 1: the natural environment. That makes me wonder, I mean, how

738
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 1: do how the boot plays into that metaphor what do

739
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 1: you think is the general UH? And you might not

740
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 1: know the answer, but what what do you think is

741
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:11,919
Speaker 1: the general environmental outlook of Buddhism? Is there a coherent one? Well?

742
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: I know, for a fact. I think I might have

743
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 1: mentioned this on a previous episode, but there was there

744
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:19,399
Speaker 1: was a wonderful New York Times article that came out

745
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 1: in recent weeks about the resurgence of religious interest in

746
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 1: China specifically. So it's people turning not not just to Buddhism,

747
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:34,239
Speaker 1: but also Daoism and Confucism and in sort of reclaiming uh,

748
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:40,240
Speaker 1: culturally important Chinese religious models, they're also taking on environmental causes.

749
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,800
Speaker 1: So they are they are finding and an environmental message

750
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 1: in Buddhism, in Taoism, in Confucianism, and then becoming active

751
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: with that within uh, with within you know, within China

752
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 1: and UH and and arguing for uh, you know, environmental

753
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 1: protective measures. It's hard not to see the Buddha as

754
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 1: somehow more harmonious with nature in this in this depiction

755
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 1: than something say like Mount Rushmore, because as we mentioned

756
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: of the way the greenery tends to surround it, like green,

757
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: maybe just moss and stuff like that is creeping into

758
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:18,839
Speaker 1: some of the surfaces on the statue. But you can

759
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: also just see these tree branches and the forest beyond

760
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: trying to creep in and surround the Buddha like a

761
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like when you see the cartoon where

762
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: snow White is surrounded by chirping birds and things, it's

763
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: like the the very life of the forest itself is

764
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 1: coming in to hug and honor the Buddha. Yeah. Well,

765
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 1: it reminds me of something we I guess it was

766
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 1: the episode of Biophilia where we talked about some of this.

767
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: You know, I think you can my read on on

768
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 1: it is that if you if you look to any

769
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: major religion, I think you can find environmental trends within it,

770
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,719
Speaker 1: environmental messages within it. But as with any religion, it

771
00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: depends on who's handling it right, who's who's who's manipulating

772
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,280
Speaker 1: it in some cases, or who is delivering the message

773
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 1: of it. And and therefore any faith can take a

774
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: you know, a less environmental form. Yeah, the the dominion

775
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: over the earth mentality versus the harmony with the earth

776
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: mentality or the preservation of the earth mentality. Yeah, I mean,

777
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: it's it's very possible someone out there is making Buddhist

778
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:30,360
Speaker 1: arguments for for the removal of environmental regulations. But but

779
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 1: I have not personally run across it. If you have

780
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 1: run across the listener send it in because I would

781
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 1: love to have that that that added perspective. But in

782
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 1: terms of just reshaping the earth, and it's worth pointing

783
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 1: out that, yeah, all major powers have done it and

784
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: continue to do it, so you know, we can look

785
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 1: to examples of reshaped mountains and damned rivers here in

786
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:52,919
Speaker 1: the United States. But I but I also can't help

787
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 1: but think of the Zai Pin Poo damn, which is

788
00:42:56,760 --> 00:43:00,719
Speaker 1: actually located in Sichuan Province as well. And this was

789
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 1: this is a large scale damn that some scientists have.

790
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:07,280
Speaker 1: You know, they've connected the dots here between it's massive

791
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: reshaping of the earth and some deadly earthquakes that have

792
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 1: occurred in the region. Really, I'm always curious about the

793
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 1: extent to which people can actually uh trace human behavior

794
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,279
Speaker 1: to the causation of earthquakes. I'm not saying I never

795
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 1: believe it happens, but I'm always curious, like, how, how,

796
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:28,319
Speaker 1: how with how much confidence can we really say that

797
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: something we did caused an earthquake? Do you think scientists

798
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 1: are pretty certain here? Well, it's something we could definitely

799
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:36,879
Speaker 1: discuss in a in a later episode, like really break

800
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 1: it apart. I mean, the scientists who are who are

801
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: who are arguing that this is taking place. Uh. But

802
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: so what we're talking about here is I'm sure they

803
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 1: know better than I do. I don't mean to cast

804
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: out on that. Well, it's it's not a it's not

805
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: a fringe science by any sense, any sense, but it is. Uh.

806
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:56,840
Speaker 1: It's known as reservoir induced size mesticity. Okay. So the

807
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 1: the idea is that you have rapid changes in water

808
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: pressure or caused by flood, seasonal flood, changes in reservoir levels,

809
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:09,239
Speaker 1: and this can activate already shaky ground and trigger an earthquake. So,

810
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: for instance, the most famous example of this is that

811
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: the three gorgeous damn in China, the huge thing. Yeah,

812
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: so this is a massive So you end up with

813
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 1: a of course, the way Damn's work, I think everybody's

814
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 1: familiar with this. You dam or river and you end

815
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 1: up with water on one side, reservoir of water, and

816
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: that's you control the flow. Yeah, and that's that's a

817
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: massive amount of water. It's a massive change. I mean

818
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 1: it's a change in mass and uh. And so the

819
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 1: idea with the three gorges here is that this this

820
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 1: reservoir ends up setting on two major fault lines and uh,

821
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:43,839
Speaker 1: and that that can actually affect seismic activity. So it's

822
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: not it's not a situation where it you can't really

823
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 1: say it alone is causing the earthquake, but it is

824
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: influencing the factors that that are at play in the

825
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: causation of earthquakes. That's the argument. And well, tentatively I

826
00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:00,359
Speaker 1: believe it. I was speaking out of ignorance. No, no no, no,

827
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the kind of thing we could take

828
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: apart in a later episode, for sure. But in the

829
00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:09,279
Speaker 1: case of the Zaiping Poo damn, this is a three

830
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen million ton water reservoir, and it lies

831
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 1: about five fifty yards from a fault line uh and

832
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 1: three miles from the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake that

833
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: killed at least reported eighty thousand people in two thousand eight.

834
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 1: And that those stats are according to the Telegraph food

835
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 1: for for thought. Nobody's blaming this in the Buddha, don't

836
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:35,319
Speaker 1: get me wrong, But and and I naturally, I don't

837
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 1: want I don't want to argue that there's a one

838
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: to one comparison to be made between uh, you know,

839
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 1: carving a sculpture out of a mountain and creating a

840
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:45,879
Speaker 1: you know, a massive reservoir via the construction of a damn.

841
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 1: But I think they both demonstrate this human ability and

842
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: desire to to remake the world and then how we

843
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: end up rediscovering the fragility of the world in the

844
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:58,959
Speaker 1: process and realizing that, Yeah, when you when you change

845
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: the shape of a mountain, that's gonna have an impact.

846
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: When you create this massive reservoir, it's going to have

847
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:06,839
Speaker 1: an impact because in the case of of of a

848
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 1: massive reservoir created via dam you also have to count

849
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: in pollution because you have water flowing into areas that

850
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,920
Speaker 1: we're not uh previously submerged, and that might mean you

851
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 1: are introducing uh, existing pollutants into the water. You have

852
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 1: can have landslides, mud slides, weather changes, you have this

853
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: uh what's called is the lake effect, so decreasing rainfall

854
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: in the area around the reservoir. Uh, there's a decrease

855
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:36,880
Speaker 1: there while there's an increase in rainfall in the surrounding

856
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 1: mountain regions. On top of that, you can have drought,

857
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 1: you can have a species loss, and you can have

858
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,359
Speaker 1: the loss of historical relics as you know, in an

859
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:48,440
Speaker 1: area that was you know, previously above water is now

860
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:51,799
Speaker 1: below water on you know, for the life of the dam. Yeah,

861
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: that's something I've rarely even considered as a consequence of

862
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 1: damming rivers. We actually have a how Stuff Works dot

863
00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: Com article on the topic, so have to link to

864
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 1: that as well on the landing page for this episode.

865
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:05,799
Speaker 1: It's stuff to blow your mind dot Com. All right,

866
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 1: So there you have it, a little you know, introduction

867
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: into I think one of the more remarkable UH statues

868
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: in the world, one that I have not seen in person,

869
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: but one day I would. I would very much like to.

870
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 1: Maybe I can convince UH work to send me there.

871
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought this up, Robert. I I've I

872
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: didn't really know anything about the statue going in, and

873
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:28,440
Speaker 1: I think it's a fascinating work of art, and I

874
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 1: too would like to see it one day. So how

875
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: about you out there again? We'd love to hear from

876
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,879
Speaker 1: anyone who has UH, who has actually ventured out and

877
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: and seen the Grand Buddha in person. What were your impressions,

878
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:42,840
Speaker 1: What do you think of the surrounding area, What do

879
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 1: you think about other massive works of sculpture, you know,

880
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 1: bet a freestanding sculpture or something carved out of the

881
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:50,360
Speaker 1: side of a mountain. What kind of effect did it

882
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 1: have on you? I'm wondering what great works of art

883
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: are going to be, you know, great great sculptures that

884
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: exist today or will exist soon, are going to be

885
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:06,840
Speaker 1: visited by tourists in another years. Like, what's the Grand

886
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: Buddha that was built recently? Huh? I guess the Grand

887
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:14,720
Speaker 1: Buddha of the future. But not the Buddha of the future,

888
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 1: not the Ma Trea. Okay, sorry, I'm being confusing. What

889
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 1: what what's the sculpture out there today that people are

890
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 1: going to be coming to with this much intensity more

891
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 1: than a thousand years from now. Well, there are some

892
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:28,879
Speaker 1: very large statues in the United States that I don't

893
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:30,879
Speaker 1: think get a lot of press because they're just such

894
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:35,360
Speaker 1: recent constructions. I want to say, there's a it's a

895
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 1: in Florida. There is a pegasus battling a dragon. And

896
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:42,800
Speaker 1: it's why I want to say, it's like the second

897
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:46,399
Speaker 1: or third largest statue in the United States. But it's

898
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:50,359
Speaker 1: not historic. It's it's a very recent creation and it's

899
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: just a dragon in a pegasus. So I don't know,

900
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 1: maybe people will grow more attached to it and and

901
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 1: it will. It will become like a something we're truly

902
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 1: proud of, and we'll start putting it on money or something.

903
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: But for the time being, I guess you know, the

904
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty, amount rushmore of these are still going

905
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 1: to be the big attractions here in the United States

906
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: until we build that five thousand foot Nixon we've been

907
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: talking about. So head on over to Stuff to Blow

908
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's the mothership. That's where we

909
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 1: will find all the podcast episodes. You will find blog

910
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 1: post videos, and links out to our social media accounts

911
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:25,840
Speaker 1: such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, Instagram, you name it. Facebook

912
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 1: is a great place to check us out though, especially

913
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 1: since we have a new discussion module group that is

914
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: set up and that's just a place where you can

915
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:35,799
Speaker 1: you can chime in with some longer form comments on

916
00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:38,919
Speaker 1: recent episodes, uh and stir up and discussion with other

917
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: listeners and even your your humble hosts here, uh, you know,

918
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 1: without it just being you know, instantly lost in that

919
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: Facebook timeline. Yeah. So, if you're interested, request to join,

920
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:51,239
Speaker 1: and of course, if you want to get in touch

921
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:53,879
Speaker 1: with us directly, as always, you can do it the

922
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:57,800
Speaker 1: old fashioned way and email us at blow the mind

923
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:10,440
Speaker 1: at how stepf works dot com for more illness and

924
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Does it? How stuff works dot

925
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:25,080
Speaker 1: Com the biggest