How should we understand wood and ceramic materials for deity statues?

Both wood and ceramic can carry a deity statue’s energy, but for formal worship I tend to recommend wood. In my religious understanding, trees grow upward toward sunlight, so I understand them through yang energy. Ceramic comes from earth, and I pay attention to its material and whether the statue is hollow. This is a faith perspective, not a materials experiment proving one is always good and the other always bad.

A client once filled a ceramic statue with sandalwood powder, hoping the powdered wood would make it solid and strengthen its energy. I felt that idea offered some reinforcement in theory. Yet the outside remained ceramic, and perception and projected intention on seeing it still had limits. Filling it did not solve every issue.

Thus, saying ceramic can carry energy and saying I prefer wood address different levels. The former does not deny that ceramic statues can be worshipped; the latter states my preference and advice. Understand the reasons without assuming that any ceramic statue necessarily contains a harmful unseen presence.

However, in another discussion of enshrining deities, I spoke more directly. I mentioned a client who spent two or three hundred thousand on ceramic statues. When I visited, I felt little divine energy. I also relayed traditional masters’ view that hollow ceramic and plastic were unsuitable for inviting a deity into a statue, while wood was more suitable. That passage concerned this client and the traditional understanding used then.

So my discussions do include both the qualified view that ceramic can carry energy though I recommend wood, and the stronger statement that such hollow materials cannot receive a deity. These should not be flattened into one statement, nor should the most absolute sentence be selected to judge all ceramic statues. At least one point is clear: a high price and miraculous publicity cannot replace understanding a statue’s origins, preparation, and actual worship conditions.