It is a fact that Shakyamuni Buddha, who was once alive and who taught the Dharma, died. He became a “historical figure,” someone really dead in an important sense. In his place as objects of devotion were such things as relics, stupas, pictures, and statues. Compared with a living human being, such things are dead. And then these dead things are put into museums and become even less alive. Or temples housing them become museums, tourist attractions, or funeral parlors, where the Dharma can be said to be dead. Teachings may be followed, but not in a very profound or sincere way.

But while an “image” of the Buddha is not the real thing, neither is it without value. It can be a way of keeping the Buddha alive in the world and in ourselves, though not in the way he was alive as a historical human being. I will always be grateful to “the Buddha” in the basement of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts with whom I sat quite regularly when experiencing difficult times as a student. I did not receive the whole Dharma, the living Dharma, from that Buddha, but I did receive something very valuable. So, too, if a temple comes to function mainly as a tourist attraction, or as only a place for funerals and memorial services for the dead, it may serve as a skillful means to lead some to deeper interest in the Buddha Dharma. And teachings that are not followed in a very profound way can nonetheless be gateways to more sincere practice. This is, I believe, one reason that in the Dharma Flower Sutra, periods of merely formal Dharma are not followed by periods of the decline of the Dharma but rather by new periods of true Dharma.