A Sacred Offering: Completing the Formless Buddha Statue

At Lapis, our peaceful Dharma centre in northern New South Wales, a symbol of the Buddha’s wisdom is coming into form — rooted in the heart of the Buddhist view.

The statue — known as the Formless Buddha — illustrates a fundamental paradox at the heart of the Buddha’s insight into reality: “Form is emptiness, emptiness also is form.” It depicts the Buddha’s form and formlessness simultaneously — not as a figure, but as the flowing shape of his robes alone, evoking a presence that cannot be grasped.

“If one seeks me in form, or looks for me in sound,

they are looking in the wrong place —

the Buddha cannot be grasped in such ways.”

— The Diamond Sutra