This photograph was taken during my Hong Kong Cinema class trip at the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery in Sha Tin, Hong Kong. Like many of the tourists climbing the stairs to the monastery, I took dozens of pictures of the golden figures lining the pathway. At the time, I mostly experienced the site visually. I was overwhelmed by its scale and beauty and thought about it mainly as a spectacular tourist destination rather than as a religious and cultural space with deeper historical meaning.
This semester, I am taking a course in Buddhist Art and Archaeology with Prof. Andrei, and it has completely changed the way I think about this experience. I learned that many of the gilded figures lining the stairs are arhats, enlightened disciples of the Buddha, but that the monastery itself does contain thousands of Buddha images beyond representations of Shakyamuni Buddha alone. I also learned more about the role of Buddhist imagery within devotional practice. The use of gold is not only aesthetic. Gilding can communicate sacredness as the gold communicates light emanating from the enlightened figure. It can also communicate legitimacy and authority due to the quality of the material. Buddhist images are also connected to the accumulation of karmic merit through acts of devotion, donation, and viewing.
Reflecting on this photograph now makes me realize how limited my perspective was when I first visited the monastery, even with the right attitude. At the time, I approached the site primarily through a Western tourist lens focused on visual consumption. While acknowledging the space as sacred, this acknowledgment was in a Christian way. I did not understand the importance of iconography in the Buddhist faith. The figures have ideal proportions, which guide the viewer to their face. The viewer meditates upon this face and gets closer to enlightenment.
I was more interested in documenting the beauty of the space than understanding its religious significance or the beliefs connected to it. Taking Buddhist Art and Archaeology has made me more aware of how easily cultural and religious spaces can become flattened into aesthetic experiences for outsiders. Yet, many experiences are aesthetic to begin with, but not for the reasons apparent to outsiders. Standards of beauty have deep roots, differing by culture. This reflection connects to the GEM learning goal of intercultural understanding because it pushed me to recognize the difference between observing a culture and engaging thoughtfully with its historical and religious context. Before this course, I tended to interpret sacred spaces mainly through visual appreciation. Now I understand that objects and images can carry religious, political, and social meanings that are not immediately visible to someone unfamiliar with the tradition.
At the same time, this reflection also connects to the GEM goal of critical self-awareness. Looking back, I realize that I moved through the monastery with a great deal of cultural distance and privilege. I had the ability to experience the site temporarily, aesthetically, and casually in a way that differs from how practitioners or local visitors may experience it, walking more slowly up the mountain and appreciating the figures for different reasons. Someone practicing Buddhism might approach the monastery through ritual, devotion, or spiritual reflection rather than photography or conjuring generalizations about art and culture in the region. Recognizing that difference has made me more conscious of my positionality when entering religious or cultural spaces outside my own background.
What changed most for me through this course was not simply gaining more factual knowledge about Buddhist imagery, but learning to slow down and ask different questions. Instead of only asking whether something is visually impressive, I now think more carefully about what objects symbolize, who they are made for, and how people interact with them spiritually and historically. Like Christianity, Buddhism is an institutional religion with its own painting academies deciding how to paint divine portraits, and artisans deciding sculptural proportions for divine figures.
In no sect of Buddhism can women reach enlightenment, which I did not know when visiting the site as a tourist. When at the monastery, I covered my shoulders as I would at a Catholic Church to not be a distraction for men trying to achieve enlightenment. This gendered approach to divinity bothers me, and I wonder if it would if I had grown up Buddhist instead of only having an intellectualized approach.
Additionally, the drapery on the figures in the image is inspired by the Gandharan tradition of India, coming from the Hellenistic period and Greek art, which from India spread through China. I realized eastern and western traditions in Hong Kong are more connected than just the film industry, which I studied while I was there.
While I had the right attitude in the moment, this experience helped me realize that intercultural learning often begins after the moment itself, when reflection and education allow you to reconsider what you originally thought you understood.
