Buddha Museum: Moments with Buddha

Traben-Trarbach in Germany, not far from the Luxemburg border, is the unlikely home for one of the finest collections of Buddha Statuary in Europe.

Housed in the Buddha Museum on the banks of the Moselle River, the Museum was originally a winery designed by famed art nouveau architect Bruno Möhring.

The Museum holds around 2,000 ancient and contemporary Buddha statues and artworks, many of outstanding quality and workmanship, from various countries: Burma, China, India, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.

This documentary is built around one of the exhibitions the Museum held called Moments with Buddha, which featured 150 of these statues in a temple-like atmosphere.

The film, besides looking at the exhibition itself, with some wonderful photography of the exhibits, also explains many things about the postures and the materials employed.

The film also relates something of the life of the Buddha, but unfortunately seems to have little understanding of the teachings, and attributes goals to the Dhamma which are completely alien to it, like merging into the absolute.

If you can overlook these shortcomings then the exhibit itself, and its presentation, and well worth seeing, and if you are in Europe the Museum itself looks like it would be worth while visiting.