This shrine is light and represents a spiritual journey, quite similar to many Buddhist shrines where you have to walk up stairs to arrive at the temple.

-A simple concrete wall, with stairs and niches, and small platforms

-In the niches are buddha statues

-It faces the sea

-It can also be placed in some urban area

I made a rough drawing of it [see link], it's not entirely finished, my PC did not have enough processing power to finish all the niches. So when finished, it should be lighter and more worked open than what you see in the pic now. But I hope you get understand what I'm trying to show.

It's a more modern shrine than some existing temples.

Buddhist architectural tradition is very open to change; in fact, change and decay is a fundamental part of it, so it can accomodate new forms.
-- django, Jul 29 2006

The wall (imagine more stairs going higher up the wall) http://i3.photobuck...el/shrineniches.jpg
Incomplete picture: You can walk up and meditate or pray or whatever you feel like doing as a buddhist or as a layman or someone else [django, Jul 29 2006, last modified Jul 30 2006]

Hello again [Django], I like where you're going with this. Especially sited by the sea - those steps to the beach should be an interesting walk, not just two hundred hot concrete steps.
-- wagster, Jul 29 2006


Nice picture. I am not sure I like that the wall extends so much higher than the stairs. Perhaps there should be climbing handholds on it. They could also be shaped like buddha.
-- bungston, Jul 30 2006


[Bungston] as I said, the stairs go all the way up, and there are more niches, but I didn't put them in the picture because my PC had not enough processing power for Blender to make that pic! So imagine more stair zigzagging up to the top of the wall.
-- django, Jul 30 2006


Sorry [dj], I didn't see that.

In the urban version of this, the niches can be left open with the expectation that they will be occupied by homeless beggar incarnations of the Buddha. It seems to me that buddhists climbing the steps in a buddha-minded mood would be especially generous, and so these niches will probably be continuously inhabited. Toilet provisions may be necessary.
-- bungston, Jul 31 2006


Nice pic! I like the idea of Buddhism embracing modernism. Don't put any more niches in it - less is more.
-- moomintroll, Jul 31 2006



random, halfbakery