Anyone who has ridden the New York subway at non-peak times will know to travel a crowded carriage for safety. Otherwise you will only have a few seconds to see the expressions of the other passengers and weigh up your chances of being robbed before deciding whether to take the train or not.

So too in many other circumstances we gather information from people's facial expressions. In our anxious, busy modern lives most people tend to tense up the 70 muscles and 5 pairs of nerves in their face and rarely snow a relaxed and genial air.

Surrounded by preoccupied people in this modern maelstrom of competition and tension, one sometimes wonders where a single kindly, gentle tension-free face to be found!

One law professor and his wife have found an answer. Every evening after dinner, when the day's work is done, they Pour a cup of tea and quietly gaze at a wooden Kuan-yin image carved by the sculptor Ch'en Cheng-hsiung. They are not religious people, but the statue's air of kindly compassion brings them inner tranquillity and calm. Just as modern people demand air purifiers and water filters, so Kuan-yin has become their spiritual purifier. Gazing at her expression has become their daily "evening prayer."

"In fact every person sculpts himself," explains artist Ch'en Han-ch'ing. Thoughts are our own personal sculptor's blade, and very fine and sharp it is. The instant a thought flits through your mind, the blade completes another stroke. No wonder President Lincoln once said anyone over 40 is responsible for his own face!

But how can looking at a Buddhist image exert this calming effect?

Buddhism advocates selflessness, publicspiritedness and compassion. So every Buddhist image, no matter whether it belongs to Sakyamuni, Kuan-yin or Man-jusri, always displays a calm, unruffled expression, at times even betraying the faintest smile.

In Taiwan, Buddhist images are usually carved in a conventional style passed on from master to pupil. So why should these contemporary artists want to pour their creative energies into Buddhist sculpture?

The celebrated ceramic artist Lien Pao-ts'ai has vowed to sculpt 1,000 images of Kuan-yin.

"While recuperating from an operation two years ago I found myself with time on my hands." Lien recalls how some Buddhist friends urged her to model a Kuan-yin in clay. She began Cheerfully enough, but no way could she sculpt a serene Kuan-yin with the kindly look of a gentle mother. "I realized I needed to prepare myself on a spiritual level, that this was the only way to begin sculpting a good Kuan-yin." Lien took to a vegetarian diet, did yoga exercises and read sutras. As she regained her health she also felt emotionally more at peace. Only then did she succeed in sculpting a Kuan-yin with the traditionally compassionate expression.

Earlier this year Lien Pao-ch'ing and some artist friends toured India and Sri Lanka, where they saw many Buddhist statues with limbs missing or exposed to the elements. Cannot a Buddha image protect itself?! "The Buddha is in our minds!" Lien Pao-ch'ing put Buddhist artistic conventions aside and freely sculpted her own image of Kuan-yin, as pure, gentle and free of desires as a newborn infant...

"I was always strict with myself and suffered a lot of internal pressure over my work," says Lien. New she feels more assured and doesn't worry any more. If it turns out badly she just starts over again. Her car accident and operation gave her a deep insight into the Buddhist view of life's impermanence. "If your most dearly beloved died, you would still send the body off to the funeral parlour in case it stank--it isn't the fleshly corpse that you love, is it?" Lien Pao-ch'ing says it's beat to preserve a degree of detachment, then you can be happy. In her desire to do some good in society she has vowed to sculpt 1,000 images of Kuan-yin to finance the reprinting of Ch'ing dynasty editions of the "Spell of Great Compassion" and the "Manifestations of Sakya Tathagata."

She happily sculpts Kuan-yin, willingly beseeches Kuan-yin, and sees joy in Kuan-yin's face.

"Buddhist images are very different from human portraits," avers sculptor Ch'en Han-ch'ing, whose work is by no means restricted to sculptures of Kuan-yin. Secular portraiture is usually Western-influenced, with the emphasis on Physical realism. Yet Buddhist portraiture additionally requires the artist to express a spirit of benevolent compassion and joyful detachment from the things of this world. In order to appreciate the meaning of Buddhism more fully, Ch'en closeted himself at home and studied Buddhist scriptures such as the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra, as well as adopting a vegetarian diet.

So sculpting a Buddhist image really does involve sculpting what is inside your own heart. The more enlightened a sculptor's insight, the more moving his work will prove.

"The Japanese honor sculptors of Buddhist images with the title busshi or 'Buddhist master,'" Ch'en Han-ch'ing says. They consider that a Buddhist image is not simply sculpted, it is rather a case of the Buddha-nature that dwells within the wood manifesting itself through the sculptor's hands and tools. Sculpture carried out with such all-encompassing reverence for nature has much to teach modern man, preoccupied as he is with greed and self-seeking. "A good Buddhist sculpture can show us our true selves," states Ch'en. Spiritual tranquillity allows us to see the root causes of our inner cares and troubles and so helps us to improve our lives.

[Picture Caption]

Is the growing interest in Buddhist sculpture among artists a sign of spiritual emptiness in contemporary man?

Lien Pao-ch'ing's Kuan-yin shows a confidently relaxed approach, untrammelled by traditional forms.

Ch'en Cheng-hsiung's experience of life's hardships is reflected in the compassionate suffering on the faces of his Buddhist figures.

Ch'en Han-ch'ing believes a good Buddhist sculpture helps us to see into ourselves. Judging by his sculptures of Buddhist devotees Han-shan and Shih-te, maybe he longs to be as happy and carefree as they.

Hsieh Yu-wen says that contemporary Buddhist sculpture should strive for beauty in order to be acceptable to ordinary people. At top is an example of his work, the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha.

Li Sung-lin considers that while the spirit of a Buddhist sculpture should be brought out by the artist, its form should follow tradition. At top is his sculpture of the tiger-subduing Lohan.

Lin Feng-nien, now 91 and a forerunner in rejuvenating Chinese painting, has had a large influence on Liu. Shown here is his work Autumn.（photo courtesy of Dimensions Art Center）

Is the growing interest in Buddhist sculpture among artists a sign of spiritual emptiness in contemporary man?