Five Hundred Arhats No.68 · The Venerable Who Realizes Emptiness and Absorbs in Emptiness | Traditional Hand-Painted Chinese Ink Zen Buddhist Figure Painting | 100×50cm

Five Hundred Arhats · No.68 The Venerable Who Realizes Emptiness and Absorbs in Emptiness

'Realizing emptiness' is to know the truth of emptiness, and 'absorbing in emptiness' is to abide in the emptiness-samādhi without clinging even to emptiness itself—realizing emptiness yet not grasping it, for emptiness too is unobtainable. The venerable sits absorbed with a luminous, vacant expression, showing the deep meditation in which even what empties is emptied and both subject and object fall away.

Painted by Li Zongyi in the freehand Chinese ink (xieyi) tradition, the brushwork is fluent and the ink tones layered from dense to pale, capturing the arhat’s spirit in a few assured strokes. The blank paper itself breathes Zen; figure and spirit are one, blending monastic solemnity with the literati’s ease. Each of the Five Hundred Arhats bears its own name and practice, uniting faith, art and collectibility — an original, non-reproducible hand-painted work.

Size: approx. 100×50cm (4.5 square chi) | Traditional hand-painted Chinese ink Zen Buddhist figure painting | On paper