Exhibit encourages peaceful feelings

In 2008, Mekare of Winston-Salem went to Asheville to view a growing collection of relics of the Buddha and many other Buddhist masters.

The collection, part of the Maitreya Project Heart Shrine Relic Tour, will eventually be enshrined in a 500-foot bronze statue of the Maitreya Buddha that is being built in Kushinagar, a city in northern India, as a way of spurring economic development. Maitreya will be the next Buddha to bring teachings of loving-kindness to the world, according to Buddhist scriptures.

After viewing the relics, "I was filled with so much peace and happiness," Mekare said. "My experience with the relics was so beautiful and profound that I wanted to share the experience with my community here. So I invited the relic tour to come to Winston-Salem."

The tour's organizers accepted Mekare's request. From Friday evening through the afternoon of Oct. 30, the Maitreya Project's touring exhibit will be on view at the Inter_Section Gallery and Art Space, 629 N. Trade St.

Mekare goes by one name. But a 2001 article in the Winston-Salem Journal identified her as Mekare Fiske.

Mekare, a student of Buddhism, has taught and danced the mandala dance of the 21 praises of Tara in several places around the world, including the Tibetan refugee camps in India and Nepal. She has also danced for many high lamas, including His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Tara is Tibetan Buddhism's mother goddess, the embodiment of wisdom, compassion and power.

The relics were of interest to Mekare because she had danced at Kopan Monastery, just outside of Kathmandu, Nepal, where the Maitreya Project originated. The relics tour is drawing attention to the project, which envisions raising $250 million for construction of the Maitreya Buddha statue and for improvements in health care and education for the people of Kushinagar.

The statue, along with a sprawling park surrounding it, will create hundreds of construction- and tourism-related jobs in one of India's poorest areas, the project's organizers say at www.maitreyaproject.org.

Kate Magruder Lambeth, the owner of Inter_Section, is a friend of Mekare's.

"It's an important cultural opportunity for the people of Winston-Salem," she said, explaining why her gallery is hosting the exhibition. "It's an opportunity to understand another faith and possibly derive some benefits from it."

Buddhists believe that relics "embody the master's spiritual qualities of compassion and wisdom and are deliberately produced by the master at his death," media materials say. The relics often resemble "beautiful, pearl-like crystals" that are found among cremation ashes of the Buddhist masters. They also consist of a master's body fragments, writings and possessions.

The relics are reported to have great mystical powers on those in their presence, including the ability to heal physical and mental ailments and to quicken awareness "so that your mind clears," Mekare said.

Others are inspired to pray for world peace, to develop their inner wisdom or to open their hearts to compassion and loving-kindness.

Compassion is "wanting others to be free from suffering," a passage at www.viewonbuddhism.org reads.

"So compassion is the definition of the highest scope of motivation. It is said that to generate genuine compassion, one needs to realize that oneself is suffering, that an end to suffering is possible, and that other beings similarly want to be free from suffering."

Louisa Gluck will help set up the relic-tour exhibit. She will also help lead blessing ceremonies; these entail placing relics in a conelike stupa and placing it on a person's head.

Gluck said the effect of the relics is hard to put into words.

"Everyone has their own experience," she said. "They're not really expecting to have an experience, but they do. People have their own individual response to it."

Many people respond to the relics by crying or becoming calm and peaceful, Gluck said, likening the gatherings at the exhibit to "a little microcosm for potential for world peace."

The relic tour started about 10 years ago when Lama Zopa Rinpoche, a revered Buddhist master, decided to make his relics part of a touring exhibit. Over the years, other people contributed their relics to the tour; recently, there were enough relics on hand to operate separate tours at the same time — in the Americas, Europe and Africa.

All told, 1.5 million people have seen the relics in 64 countries.

"Usually, it's not easy to see relics," Gluck said. "They're in temples. …You might not be allowed to see (them). You have to get permission. It takes time and all that kind of thing."