Zen Masters taught despite the persecution and hid their lessons , as I showed in the article Bowing at the Scene of the C r i m e atthesceneofthecrimeThere are stories in Zen literature about teachers who , in order to show that the Buddha was not special , burned Buddha statues , or threw them away . I even read once of a monastery in Sri Lanka where the Buddha ' s image was printed inside urinals , to the same end . In cultures where Buddhism is long established , and where the Buddha is sometimes accorded godlike status , such transgressive actions become profound and powerful teachings . But in the West , we like those kinds of stories too much for them to be very meaningful . These stories appear again and again in Western Zen literature . We smile knowingly when we read them . We love what those teachers did , but we have to remember that those teachers did those things in front of students who were horrified , not thrilled . That was the point . This partI have heard of individuals and Zen centers doing away with such imagery all together , replacing the Buddha image with something like a beautiful rock . I imagine that such a choice comes out of a concern about idolatry perhaps such centers feel that a Buddha statue would just be too overtly Buddhist . I think they do it with intent to hide Buddhism as a tribute to the original Zen Patriarchs who were persecuted for their beliefs .