Because of the role such icons can play in teaching Dharma, many traditions regard making buddha images as producing great merit in this and future lifetimes. Historically, statues of buddhas and bodhisattvas have been instrumental in the introduction of Buddhism, accompanying Buddhist teachers and texts into new countries. Icons also serve as a visual symbol and focus for practice, thus spreading the Dharma to many kinds of people, including uneducated laypeople. In Mahayana and Vajrayana, statues are often thought to embody or contain the deity that they represent. Ritual consecrations are standard in the creation of new statues, serving to make the inanimate statue a living deity capable of teaching and worthy of being venerated.
Stories tell of statues flying, sweating, speaking, etc.
Some Buddhists see statues as merely symbols to focus concentration, but many practitioners describe and use statues as if they truly contain or are a deity. Religions of China in Practice, edited by Donald Lopez, Jr. Princeton University Press. 1996.