{"id":73129,"date":"2017-04-13T00:09:24","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T04:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wanderlust.com\/?p=73129\/"},"modified":"2019-07-15T09:42:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T13:42:13","slug":"10000-buddhas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wanderlust.com\/ja\/journal\/10000-buddhas\/","title":{"rendered":"How This Artist is Using 10,000 Buddhas to Build Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

See Amanda Giacomini<\/a>‘s 10,000 Buddhas this year at Wanderlust Squaw Valley<\/a>! For tickets and more information, click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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It all started in a cave. <\/span><\/p>\n

Or at least that\u2019s where Amanda Giacomini<\/a> was inspired to start painting her Buddhas, having no idea that she would eventually be painting 10,000 of them. Now the famous image covers a variety of spaces, including living room walls, city streets, sweatshirts, and yoga studios.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had been traveling around to study yoga with my teacher, Sri K. Patabhi Jois, and I wanted to venture around a bit and see more of the country,\u201d Amanda says.\u00a0<\/span>The young artist was in teacher training at the time, and using her off-hours to explore some of the country\u2019s local fauna. Her wanderlust led her to the Ajanta caves<\/a>\u20142000 year-old Buddhist caves used as shelter for the monks during monsoon season. The Buddhists, who were on pilgrimage, aimed to travel as wide and far as possible, staying only three days in each city. But that wasn\u2019t possible during monsoon season, and thus the caves were born. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSuch beautiful caves, floor to ceiling, all about the life and past lives of the Buddha,\u201d Amanda reminisces. \u201cIn one of the caves, I saw a painting of 1,000 beautiful B<\/span>uddhas. There\u2019s a whole story about the 1,000 Buddhas, the moral being that students shouldn\u2019t compete in yoga, that they shouldn\u2019t do fancy tricks or read minds. Rather the practice is about compassion, and helping others to be good people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Amanda elaborated, saying that in the story, Buddha then performed a miracle for his students, and replicated himself 1,000 times. Thus the beginning of 1,000 little Buddhas.<\/span><\/p>\n