The difference between Buddhist and Chrstian iconography

 

There is a notable difference  between the way the Buddha is represented in paintings and  statues, with his benevolently peaceful gaze ,and the way Christian saints are usually represented, with an intense, almost paranoiac, ecstatically transfixed gaze. 

This “Buddha’s gaze” is often evoked as a possible antidote to the Western aggressive-paranoiac gaze, a gaze which aims at total control, and is always alert, on the lookout for some lurking threat:

I n the Buddha,we find a benevolently withdrawn gaze which simply lets things be, abandoning the urge to control them.