On rituals

[Nengyo]

I have to disagree here, and quite strongly. You are suggesting that anything you do on a regular basis is a ritual. I don't see it that way. I think a ritual is something that has symbolism. If you drink a cup of coffee to drink a cup of coffee — what to wake up — that's drinking a cup of coffee. If, however, you drink a cup of coffee thinking that it is the blood of the Buddha, that would be a ritual.

I would typically agree kirk, but isn't the point of this game in zen buddhism to make all of life a ritual, in essence to make everything holy? To a christian drinking a cup of coffee would not be a ritual, because in Christianity drinking coffee is not associated with any particular special meaning. But in zen weighing flax, picking up dog turds, and bowing to Buddha all seem to be equally significant. Mindfulness of my daily coffee makes it a ritual in and of itself.

I could be all wrong

metta,
the new guy

[Rich]

I would typically agree kirk, but isn't the point of this game in zen buddhism to make all of life a ritual, in essence to make everything holy? To a christian drinking a cup of coffee would not be a ritual, because in Christianity drinking coffee is not associated with any particular special meaning. But in zen weighing flax, picking up dog turds, and bowing to Buddha all seem to be equally significant. Mindfulness of my daily coffee makes it a ritual in and of itself.

I could be all wrong

metta,
the new guy

I never thought of my morning coffee as a ritual but I guess it is. I bring it outside and sit in a chair that is under the overhang against the house. I do this year round, rain or shine, cold or hot. Hearing the birds, insects, planes and cars; seeing the trees and sky; is a great way to wake up.

[Kaishin]

Hmm... well this thread has certainly gotten long and confusing!

To get back to the root, Kirk can you be more specific as to exactly which rituals/practices bother you, and which do not? Sorry if you had already done so--I'm trying to catch up on this monster thread.

[Taigu]

Unlike my fellow priests in Europe, I don t care about copying Japanese style and procedures and keep things to the strict minimum. Hannya Shingyo, a couple of short chants, daishin dharani and Bob s your uncle.
Unlike old blokes like Keizan or Dogen, I am not living in a world where the fabric of reality is permanently woven with dreams, visions, and the likes. Nevertheless, I have experienced so many times stuff that has a magical edge to it, I am convinced of the power of sounds. Being a bad poet, a failed writer and musician, I cannot deny this reality too. But I am not attached to it. I don t practice to massage my heart and make myself feel good. I practice for others not gor my own f.... Up head.I would appreciate some people here to sometimes step out of their comfort zone and squarrish world and listen, listen, listen. Very much like Jundo, I can see all the esoteric and magical stuff as a clever device to control people s minds. Institutionalised rituals sometimes turn into empty ballet and money making opportunities. That does not disqualify the truth expressed in the robe, the mandala and the chant. Greedy and corrupted clergy has its way, we have ours. Faithful to Sawaki Kodo s teachings, I revere, protect and spread teaching of the robe, shave my head and sit. These three realities are one and cannot be devided. In shorts or kolomo, in front if a statue or a bin, same reality manifested at once. It is not just a wrapping and a trapping. It is the way of patch robed human beings.

Gassho

Taigu

[Jundo]

Posting on this topic seems to be my new "ritual". mwahahahah

Yes... Jundo this is how I feel! I also agree with Taigu. Of course, in my less experienced way I was throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which is exactly why I'm not a Zen teacher thank goodness. I just read the history of Dogen's life at the end of Realizing Genjokoan, and it seems like he had the same opinion of Zen in his day. I don't have the book with me right now, so I can't find the passage... grrr But Dogen, too, was not about the BS (note: I'm talking about superstitions like chanting specific names to invoke insight, etc, not the Rakusu which I do not think is bs at all).

I think honoring the traditions is one thing, but when we give them more weight than what they are then I think it moves out of what Buddhism is. As human beings, we do have a tendency to add onto things. It's sort of what we do. But to me, this practice is about stripping away things; I guess it's also a very rich practice of discovering new things that were there all along. However, I completely agree with Taigu and you that we must be careful on what to strip away. After all, I'm just a beginner, and I look to you both for guidance in this practice. Otherwise, as Kyrillos noted, why in the hell are we practicing at Treeleaf? At my point in practice, it's easy to say "oh I don't like that. I won't do it". Just a couple days ago I noted how it didn't mean anything to me to chant the Heart Sutra in Japanese; I don't speak Japanese. However your (Jundo's) point about just throwing ourselves into it (regardless of the language) is a very valid one. And again, it's nice to honor the roots of this practice.

Going back to the Rakusu, although I don't attribute magic to my Rakusu, I think that the sewing is an important practice. And Taigu's instructions on it just pierce through to the heart and show why it is important to our way.

Hi Risho,

I feel that your post shows great Wisdom and Balance ... a willingness to "try new things" and give them sufficient time to sink in (that may take years to fully sink in for some practices, by the way), an ability to get around one's inner resistance to a practice, a power to find meaning in a practice that one might not originally have seen, an ability to find old meanings and lessons equally in old packages and new ...

... and a willingness to step away from some practices which ... however traditional and orthodox ... do not resonate in one's heart after all that.

The one thing I might say is that Dogen was a pretty traditional guy, and the image of Dogen as a modernist and mold breaker is not really the case. He literally "wrote the book" on most of the old Zen Rituals we are discussing here, and did everything from holding ceremonies to appease the local mountain gods where he built his monastery to having visions come to him in dreams ... to about everything that Buddhist folks were up to in the 13th Century. Of course, Dogen did offer us some very original and mold breaking interpretations and expressions of these old traditions, but his monastery was pretty traditional however one looks at it. Here is a short summary of Dogen historian Griffith Fouk's recent article on "Dogen's Take On ... Conventional Buddhist Practices" ...

This chapter is based on a close reading of passages in the Shōbōgenzō and elsewhere on sutra reading, which is one of the practices that Dōgen says is unnecessary in the oft-quoted passage attributed to his mentor Rujing, cited in Bendōwa (also found in Hōkyōki and “Gyōji”): “You can only succeed by just sitting, without a need to make use of burning incense, prostration, recitation of buddha names, repentance ceremonies, reading scriptures, or ritual incantations.” Based on the ritual practices that he followed, it is shown that Dōgen did not mean to reject literally any of those standard Buddhist training methods. Why, then, does he disparage them? The answer is actually simple and clear, and is well illustrated in “Kankin”: one should engage in all practices, ideally without attachment to them, but even with attachment if one has not figured out yet what nonattachment really is. Nonattachment for Dōgen is insight into the emptiness of dharmas, which in plain English means the ultimately false (albeit useful) nature of all conceptual categories, starting with the category of “thing.” From that point of view, all practices (including zazen or sitting meditation) are rejected because, after all, there is no such thing as “practice”—it is just a conventional category—and yet all practices are also accepted and endorsed.

(You can read a couple of pages of the article on page if you search the phrase "borrowing of elements" at http://www.amazon.com/Dogen-Textual-.../dp/0199754470 )

But Dogen was Dogen, we are who we are. Just because Dogen practiced a certain way he felt appropriate to life in a 13th Century Monastery in the lonely mountains of ancient Japan, that does not mean that we need practice the same way ... and it does not mean that we cannot find many of the same lessons ... living in 21st Century American or European cities and suburbs. (It does not mean that we need reject all the "old ways" either just because they are old).

I still feel weird/awkward when saying a meal gatha. The rest of the rituals are mine, done in private, but the meal gatha is for all to see. This weekend the wife and I went to a restaurant and when I put my hands together to start my gatha she giggled and said that I looked like the Christians I made fun of so much in the past (I was a very outspoken atheist).

Well, one can put one's hands together in Gassho in a restaurant, and make this a time for family bonding. Or, one can say it unnoticed and quietly within (if at a business lunch, for example) and not wishing to make a public demonstration. The words, by the way, are meant to have meaning ... gratitude for where the food came from, the farmers and all others everywhere who brought it to us, its keeping us alive ... It is also an aspiration that all the hungry people be fed.

This food comes from the efforts
of all sentient beings past and present,
and is medicine for nourishment of our Practice.
We offer this meal of many virtues and tastes
to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha,
and to all life in every realm of existence.
May all sentient beings in the universe
be sufficiently nourished.


It has the magic of simple gratitude and the deep interconnection of the universe. No "hocus-pocus". It was abbreviated by me based on the longer "Formal Meal Verses" (Gyohatsu Nenju 行鉢念誦) recited during Oryoki in a Soto Zen Monastery:

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?8881-Meal-time-chant-during-Ango&p=61770&viewfull=1#post61770

To a christian drinking a cup of coffee would not be a ritual, because in Christianity drinking coffee is not associated with any particular special meaning. But in zen weighing flax, picking up dog turds, and bowing to Buddha all seem to be equally significant. Mindfulness of my daily coffee makes it a ritual in and of itself.

Yes! Any of life can be a ritual when we see the sacred in that action, all time and space in that passing moment, no matter how seemingly "ordinary". Yes, when known as such, "picking up a dog turd" is Buddha picking up Buddha with a Buddha-scoop. To a Buddha's nose, each turd smells just as lovely as the most expensive incense stick.


Gassho, Jundo

[Jundo]

Unlike my fellow priests in Europe, I don t care about copying Japanese style and procedures and keep things to the strict minimum. Hannya Shingyo, a couple of short chants, daishin dharani and Bob s your uncle.
Unlike old blokes like Keizan or Dogen, I am not living in a world where the fabric of reality is permanently woven with dreams, visions, and the likes. Nevertheless, I have experienced so many times stuff that has a magical edge to it, I am convinced of the power of sounds. Being a bad poet, a failed writer and musician, I cannot deny this reality too. But I am not attached to it. I don t practice to massage my heart and make myself feel good. I practice for others not gor my own f.... Up head.I would appreciate some people here to sometimes step out of their comfort zone and squarrish world and listen, listen, listen. Very much like Jundo, I can see all the esoteric and magical stuff as a clever device to control people s minds. Institutionalised rituals sometimes turn into empty ballet and money making opportunities. That does not disqualify the truth expressed in the robe, the mandala and the chant. Greedy and corrupted clergy has its way, we have ours. Faithful to Sawaki Kodo s teachings, I revere, protect and spread teaching of the robe, shave my head and sit. These three realities are one and cannot be devided. In shorts or kolomo, in front if a statue or a bin, same reality manifested at once. It is not just a wrapping and a trapping. It is the way of patch robed human beings.

Gassho

Taigu

Yes, Taigu, thank you. The wonderful thing about this Sangha is that we may offer a few flavors of practice to different folks with different needs ... some wishing to chant Dharani, some not. We also encourage folks to drop the resistance and attachment and dive into other ways from time to time ... even what we usually do not feel drawn to. (It is for that reason that I recently advised Kirk, who resists bowing and sewing ... that he needs to bow and sew for our Ango and Jukai this year). All the flavors contain the same sweetness ultimately.

I am also convinced of the power of sounds ... as music, as a wordless Beethoven symphony (Da Da Da Dum), as a poem, as the cry of my baby daughter's "goo goo ga ga" ... so why not the sound of a seemingly "abracadabra to prevent fires and floods" chant like the Dharani's "GYA GYA KI GYA" even if it is seemingly saying nothing more than "DA DA DA DUM, GOO GOO GA GA, GYA GYA KI GYA".

I am also convinced of the power of dreams ... as my inner voice, the mind running free, as a vision of something in the imagination ... even if I do not see dreams as (likely) secret messages from the spirit world or portents and signs of future events.

To each their own ... whether bowing to a Buddha Statue, or chanting a Dharani, or making coffee or picking up Dog Turds ... no different to the mind who can pierce the moment. As different as night and day to the mind that thinks of "mundane" and "holy". Let's do them all sometimes, and see them all as "Munda-Holy!"

I found such beauty in your description of your reasons (and non-reasons) for chanting the Dharani ... not that you need anyone's sense of beauty in that but your own, my friend. However, I did find that it speaks to my heart too ... that the sound can simply ring in one's heart with the meaning "there are no calamities ever, no calamity from the first ... nonetheless, lets do our best to prevent calamities, and may no sentient being suffer one!" If it can be taken to be saying that, then I could get into the baby-sound of "GYA GYA KI GYA" too. After all, "Ob-la-di, ob-la-da life goes on bro, La la la how the life goes on". It will be my Practice to chant it again with you, by your side, at our Rohatsu Retreat this December. It is doubtful that I will be found to chant it on other days.

Gassho, J

[Jinyo]

I never thought of my morning coffee as a ritual but I guess it is. I bring it outside and sit in a chair that is under the overhang against the house. I do this year round, rain or shine, cold or hot. Hearing the birds, insects, planes and cars; seeing the trees and sky; is a great way to wake up.

A lovely image of 'just being' - and you probably never thought of it as 'ritual' because it just is.

We spoil so much with words/thinking - to effortfully keep thinking 'mindfullness' - to consciously ask is this a ritual - is it a habit - is it a structure - just keeps cutting up and dividing.

Thank you for sharing your morning coffee Richard - and please don't think on it as it's beautiful as is.

Gassho

Willow

[Mp]

... We also encourage folks to drop the resistance and attachment and dive into other ways from time to time ... even what we usually do not feel drawn to.

I feel this is very important. Sometimes we can get great understanding by stepping outside the box (our comfort zone). If in doing so we like it, great ... if we don't like it, that too is also great.

Gassho
Michael

[Marla567]

Hello Kirk and hello to all the others,

a very interesting thread!
At first I couldn't understand your problems with the rituals, because I like them very much. Perhaps I like rituals so much, because I loved to go to church as a child and I helped there with the rituals, too. I always feel like I'm part of something greater than me... I feel greater.. and it is more easy for me to give up the judgements and the self-control.

But on the other hand I know exactly what it feels like to have problems with rituals: When I first encountered Zen I sat with a very small group: Almost all elderly men and most of them with health problems. At the end of the sitting someone had to go around, knee down and give everybody a cake and tea and then we ate and drank in silence. A very nice ritual and after two times I thought: I'm the youngest and fittest, I should help. But after a few times I really got problems with it: to knee down in front of everybody and to give a cake and tea. I thought, that I can't do this anymore, that I never want to go there again (I also couldn't sleep in some nights because of this, it was very strange). And because of this aversion I stayed and gave the tea and the cake every week for over a year. I just wanted to know, what the problem was. And after a year the problem vanished: It was just kneeing down and giving the cake and the tea, nothing more. I felt much more free after this experience...

Gassho
Bianca

[Mp]

Thank you Bianca ... that is a wonderful story and a great example of how just doing it helps us drop our conditions, thoughts, ideas, wants, etc about the ritual.

Gassho
Michael

[Dokan]

And after a year the problem vanished: It was just kneeing down and giving the cake and the tea, nothing more.

Wonderful example of closing the gap...thank you.

Gassho,

Dokan

[Jundo]

Someone wrote to ask if I was being inconsistent in some of my statements here ... expressing quite opposite advice.

On the one hand, I have said that we can "Just Sit" as our one Practice, and encounter washing dishes, cleaning up after the dog, taking care of the baby, making coffee as our "munda-sacred rituals". No need for incense, Buddha statues, robes, Japanese chants and all the rest.

On the other hand, I sometimes write how most of these Practices ... incense, statues, robes, chants ... can come to speak to one's heart, have meaning, embody the Buddhist Teachings, carry great lessons, honor Tradition. So, I have come to Practice them, and I recommend these Practices to others. (Well, not "mumbo-jumbo abracadabra Dharani" perhaps, but all the rest speak to me ... and even the Dharani speak to some folks even if not me).

So, which is it? These Traditional Practice are necessary or not? They should be Practiced or not?

My response? YES! All of the above!

They are not necessary, and some days I do without all but Zazen. Other times, I light incense, bow before the altar, chant in Japanese because they are rich and wonderful Practices ... each Zazen in its widest meaning ... and honor our roots and Traditions too.

Likewise, if someone is too attached to pomp and ceremony, or some "exotic and mysterious" faux-Asian Zenness, or to magic and myth and superstition ... I point out that the wrappings are not necessary, often a bunch of hocum and exaggeration, and we can do without all that. Just Sit.

If someone resists the ceremony and ritual and Traditional practices, I tell them to drop the resistance and give em a try, go deep into each ... find the richness in every gesture, chant and bow and listen to traditional stories and sew a Rakusu.

So, a perfectly consistent inconsistency!

Gassho, J

[Rich]

"Thank you for sharing your morning coffee Richard - and please don't think on it as it's beautiful as is.

Gassho

Willow"

OK, thanks.



"And because of this aversion I stayed and gave the tea and the cake every week for over a year. I just wanted to know, what the problem was. And after a year the problem vanished: It was just kneeing down and giving the cake and the tea, nothing more. I felt much more free after this experience...

Gassho
Bianca"

So perserverance does pay off -)




"So, a perfectly consistent inconsistency!

Gassho, J"

Always wondered what that was -)

[ChrisA]

This topic beats with the vitality of Treeleaf. It's an honor to read.

A brief story from another sangha. A few weeks ago, the keys to one of the store rooms went missing, and thus the liturgy books were locked away. The group that was left had bells and drums and incense but no guidance for the session nor the printed sutras and chants. So we all took a deep breath and winged it, doing our level best to follow through with our rituals and chants guided by our faulty memories and shaky guts. We did a pretty damned good job, too!

Afterward, several of us were chatting about how our sense of the rituals changed, that concentrating with such focus on the actions made us treat them with remarkable care and gratitude. This was particularly true for the chanting, I think: as one member pointed out, we were, in fact, chanting in manner that was thousands of years old, repeating from memory (instead of reading from print), and thus connecting our practice in a very real way to that of those ancestors we talk about now and then.

The whole experience has left me with a greater appreciation for the ways in which this genjokoan, this practice of everyday life, is ennobled by rituals, and vice versa. Surely didn't see that coming.....

[RichardH]

At the end of the day, Zen is a relgious practise based on the MYSTERY of what this is.

Oh.. no mystery for me please. Mystery is a reaching in the dark. No reaching, no mystery. ..like the doughnut enso BTW.

Gassho, kojip.