Chung Tai World Museum Admission Ticket
Free entry to two special exhibitions until May 2027
︱"The Birth of a Museum: Ten Years of Exploring and Practising 'Transforming the World through Art'"
Chung Tai World Museum, Main Building — 2026 Special Exhibition Overview
- Dates: 2026.08.04 - 2027.05.23 (closed on Mondays)
- Venue: Chung Tai World Museum Main Building, 3F Special Exhibition Rooms 301B / 302B
- Suggested visit time: 45-60 minutes
|About the Exhibition|
In 2026 the Chung Tai World Museum marks its tenth anniversary, which also falls ten years after the passing of its founder, Grand Master Wei Chueh. Over the past decade the museum has upheld the founder's ideal of "transforming the world through art", connecting Buddhist art with contemporary society and, through exhibitions and educational outreach, allowing culture to reach people's hearts. This tenth-anniversary exhibition invites visitors to return to the museum's very beginnings and witness together the birth of a museum. In recent years Taiwan's museum community has embraced the idea of "curating for all", promoting educational activities around curatorial work — from conservation and collection to exhibition planning — and people have grown curious: how does a museum actually work? How does an exhibition come into being? This tenth-anniversary exhibition sets out to answer that curiosity, drawing back the curtain to reveal ten years of building and the work that goes on behind the scenes. Centred on the questions "How does a museum do it? What does a museum do?", the exhibition is divided into five sections, each built around a core question, inviting visitors to rethink the role and possibilities of the museum:
1. What was the wish behind founding a museum?
2. In a Buddhist museum, how does an exhibition come into being?
3. How does a Buddhist museum bring knowledge and audiences together?
4. What does a Buddhist museum mean to its volunteers?
5. How does Buddhist art find its way into everyday life?
In the galleries you will find not only highlights and overlooked gems from the past decade of special exhibitions, but also a look behind the scenes at the museum's founding, curation and
educational outreach, revealing the expertise and care behind every exhibition and every object. The exhibition also looks back on ten years
of challenges and growth, and considers how the core spirit of "transforming the world through art" might continue to be realised in the future.
▲Tenth-anniversary exhibition — section "The Founding Wish"
▲Tenth-anniversary exhibition — section "Behind the Exhibition"
▲Tenth-anniversary exhibition — section "Guardianship and Transmission"
|Interactive Features|
The exhibition includes a number of interactive experiences in the galleries, such as: multimedia interactive displays — motion-sensing technology lets visitors interact with projected exhibits
for an immersive experience; and behind-the-scenes vignettes — secret files hidden throughout the galleries, waiting to be uncovered as you explore
more of the museum's intriguing stories.
▲Hands-on activity area 1
▲Hands-on activity area 2
▲Lunar New Year woodblock print
︱"In Reverent Memory: A Special Exhibition Marking the Tenth Anniversary of the Founding Abbot's Passing"
Chung Tai World Museum, Wood Sculpture Branch — 2026 Special Exhibition Overview
- Dates: 2026.04.09 - 2027.04.11 (closed on Mondays)
- Venue: Chung Tai World Museum Wood Sculpture Branch, 3F (No. 6, Zhongtai Rd., Puli Township, Nantou County 545004)
- Suggested visit time: 45 minutes
|About the Exhibition|
In grateful remembrance of our founding master, recalling the days spent at his side; the lamp of the lineage passes on, his example living in word and deed.
2026 marks the tenth anniversary of the passing of Grand Master Wei Chueh, founding abbot of Chung Tai Chan Monastery. To mark the occasion, the Wood Sculpture Branch of the Chung Tai World Museum presents "In Reverent Memory: A Special Exhibition Marking the Tenth Anniversary of the Founding Abbot's Passing", in gratitude for his life's work and in remembrance of his compassionate teaching.
Held on the third floor of the Wood Sculpture Branch, the exhibition is divided into four sections: "Inheriting the Linji Lineage", "Founding Chung Tai", "The Example of an Enlightened Master" and "The Undying Lamp of the Mind":
"Inheriting the Linji Lineage" traces the Dharma lineage the Grand Master carried forward, and records his years in solitary retreat studying and awakening to the Chan mind;
"Founding Chung Tai" presents the early years of Chung Tai Mountain and the chapter it opened in the history of Buddhism in Taiwan;
"The Example of an Enlightened Master" and "The Undying Lamp of the Mind" centre on the Grand Master's teachings — the Four Tenets of Chung Tai and the Five Approaches to the Dharma — presenting a Chung Tai that carries the past forward and continues, to this day, to press on without pause.
Through a wealth of historical material and objects associated with the Grand Master that bear witness to many significant moments, the exhibition looks back on the hardships of the road travelled and looks ahead to the aspiration that continues to take root.
Since it opened at the Wood Sculpture Branch, "In Reverent Memory: A Special Exhibition Marking the Tenth Anniversary of the Founding Abbot's Passing" has met with an enthusiastic response. In appreciation of everyone who has taken part, the exhibition has been extended to 11 April 2027. We warmly invite old friends to journey once more through "Inheriting the Linji Lineage", "Founding Chung Tai", "The Example of an Enlightened Master" and "The Undying Lamp of the Mind", revisiting the Grand Master's example and his teachings in word and deed; and we equally welcome new friends to discover what he built in founding Chung Tai, and his great aspiration to spread the Dharma in all directions so that all might have a place in which the mind can rest at ease.
▲Grand Master Wei Chueh and the enduring lamp of the Chung Tai mind. This exhibition presents the years of his practice and his work spreading the Dharma across three major sections and ten themes.
▲"Inheriting the Linji Lineage" is where the path of practice begins. Through documents, historical materials and rarely seen archive photographs, we glimpse a monk devoting himself to solitary Chan retreat in turbulent times, and the moment he turned towards teaching and liberating others.
▲Using multimedia together with spatial installations, the gallery recreates day and night inside the thatched hut of his solitary retreat. The scriptures he studied and the writings he composed in those years have been digitised, and visitors can leaf through them via interactive displays.
▲The "Pear Blossoms in Bloom" area: a pear-tree setting inspired by his poem "Verses on Pear Blossoms". Before an animation of pear blossoms opening and falling, visitors may sit beneath a pear-tree installation and listen to his Dharma words.
▲The neighbouring "Founding Chung Tai" area presents moments from the early years of Chung Tai Mountain.
▲From the ten seven-day Chan retreats that caused such a stir in the 1980s, the exhibition describes how Grand Master Wei Chueh sowed the seeds of Chan practice in Taiwan and brought calm to people's hearts.
▲It goes on to show how, step by steady step, he led his disciples in establishing a monastery open to all.
▲Entering "The Example of an Enlightened Master", built around the Four Tenets of Chung Tai and the Five Approaches to the Dharma, visitors can view archival footage and original documents on his teaching, disaster relief, cultural exchange, outreach and founding of schools, accompanied by a curved surround-screen film.
︱Chung Tai World Museum
Your ticket admits you to both the Chung Tai World Museum and its Wood Sculpture Branch
The museum's displays are organised around three categories — text, image and scripture — featuring selected stele rubbings, Buddhist statuary and artefacts from across the dynasties, and Confucian and Buddhist stone-carved scriptures, conveying three themes: "text conveys the Way", "image imprints the mind", and "scripture transmits the Dharma".
"Text conveys the Way" centres on rubbings of stone inscriptions through the ages, showing the orthodox tradition, rites, literature and art of Chinese culture.
"Image imprints the mind" centres on the museum's Buddhist artefacts, statuary and votive steles, presenting the religious spirit, meaning and artistic forms of Buddhist culture.
"Scripture transmits the Dharma" centres on rubbings of stone scriptures through the ages together with the museum's Buddhist manuscript sutras and copies of the Classic of Filial Piety; the second-floor "Scripture Transmits the Dharma" gallery explains the cultural transmission of scripture and the significance of carving sutras in stone.
▲The museum's digital rubbing station is a hands-on experience for visitors of all ages.
✦ For more information, please visit the official Chung Tai World Museum website: https://www.ctwm.org.tw/index.html
✦ Suggested itinerary: 【Chung Tai World Museum】The "Louvre of Taiwan" — every bit as magnificent as they say!
