The enlightened life embodied in this thousand-year old statue of Akshobhya
reflects our forefathers' wisdom and devotion.
Enduring for over 1,300 years
the statue's head, with Akshobhya's divinely wise and compassionate countenance,
separated from its body years ago and wandered through foreign lands
to fulfill Akshobhya's compassionate wish:
to reveal our selfishness and self-attachment,
and to awaken our compassion and wisdom.

Countless ancient artifacts, witness to human civilization,
have been trampled on and destroyed by human hatred and greed.
Yet Akshobhya has come to Taiwan
and will be restored to his historical origin and grandeur.
His destiny is an expression of the selfless spirit in the Buddhadharma,
the result of your joyful wish to preserve cultural heritage,
and the fruit of the special Dharma connection across the Taiwan Strait.

In restoring this dignified Buddha image to perfect completeness,
its enlightened life spanning over a thousand years is continued,
and this jewel of cultural relics is passed on.
As the return of this ancient artifact to its point of origin nears-
have you, too, glimpsed the origin of your mind?

Later, on a trip to China, I saw many ancient Buddhist statues and grottos in Yunkang, Longmen, and Dunghuang that were reduced to remnants and ruins due to weathering from the elements. The most serious were that of the headless torso of statues whose head were pillaged. It was an unbearable sight. When I visited several museums in countries both in the East and the West, I discovered that many of the Buddhist antiquities in their collection used to demonstrate the ancient human civilizations were the pillaged items from China. The beheaded states of these sadden me deeply.

In 1988 when I returned to China to visit relatives, I saw Buddhist sculptures in monasteries that were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution; and in 2001 when I heard of the news of the destruction of the ancient Bamiyan stone Buddha by the Talibans. All these atrocities made me feel as if my own limbs were severed and my flesh gouged out.

For these are not only cultural heritage of human wisdom and endeavor, they are the very representation of the spirit and faith of our ancestors. By reflecting and remembering our ancestors' grace and examples, we will be able to find a new way of thinking that bridges the past and future, so that we can continue their footsteps and advance further.

This spring (2002), I learnt from a Buddhist antiquity collector that a group of Taiwanese has purchased an ancient Buddha head statue abroad for the purpose of donating it to the future Dharma Drum Mountain Museum of Buddhist History and Culture. My immediate response was that of gratitude, and then to approach Dr. Lin, PaoYao from the Taipei National University of the Arts to investigate into its origin in China. It would be best to restore it to where it belongs historically. As a result, Dr. Liu Fengjun from the Shandong University was invited to Taiwan to conduct the authenticity assessment of the head statue. He confirmed it to be the missing Buddha head (stolen in 1997) of the Four Gate Pagoda at the Shentong Monastery in Jinan, Shandong Province, China, which was built in the Sui Dynasti (ca.600). With the consent of the donors, this event "Odyssey.Renaissance" was hence initiated.

Chan Master Sheng Yen
Founder of the Dharma Drum Mountain
November 12, 2002