There are seemingly countless rituals in Buddhism. If you’ve spent time with a Tibetan Lama, rituals are not quite 24/7 but in an extended retreat of three years, they are ever present. It is not that difficult to trace the roots of Buddhist rituals. They can be traced back to Indian religious culture.
When it comes to Zen meditation, or zazen, it may seem to the beginner that it is ritual free. But this is not quite true. In ritualized meditation how the body is positioned is extremely important. This includes how the hands are supposed to be positioned. Even how one approaches their sitting cushion bowing to it, for example, is part of the meditation ritual process. Time is also important. When meditation ends is given by a certain signal which we have to obey.
What such rituals add to our spiritual character can certainly be debated. How does sitting ramrod straight on a meditation cushion for the time it takes a stick of incense to burn down add spiritual character? Does it make reading the discourses of the Buddha any easier?
Abandoning ritualized meditation for sitting on a small rice sack stuffed with cotton by some unnamed waterfall might be a better substitute. Sitting in an abandoned mine, too, might be a better alternative that doing zazen in some Zen center. One wonders, however, why sitting is always connected with meditation. Truth be known, we should not presume that sitting is the royal road to realizing our Buddha-nature.
Real meditation is not something you do by assuming a particular physical posture such as sitting in a full or half lotus on your ass. It is all about getting in touch with the Buddha Mind which transcends physical bodies. One has to use non-physical means.
ritualization of spiritual exercises for bringing about synthesis (with the Absolute) is necessitated to become an ENDS (to the idiot/fool) rather than for the wiseman who found such exercises conducive to (not = conduct!) synthesis (samadhi/epistrophe/union).
Obviously necessitated to the nihilist who negates the Atman, the means are apropos and defacto ENDS, ergo postures, etc. become the alpha-omega of such endeavors.
As such all religions are secularized (=ritualized) exercises sans goal, ...i.e. are base popularized metaphysics.
There cannot be by definition, truth in any religion, buddhism or otherwise. Correct spirituality is always private and personal for many more than one reason.
Posted by: Java Junkie Junebug Julius | February 01, 2012 at 06:55 PM
In the Christian tradition, meditation is usually reading a passage of the Bible and than meditating on it.
Perhaps Western people could use something similar. Reading a Sutra, and then concentrating on a critical word from the passage.
Such as emptiness.
Of course even with this method there's always the danger of discursive thinking instead of contemplation.
That's why koan introspection is still the best way to "enter".
The kanhua chan method of Dahui can be apply to everything.
Even if someone is involved in ritual sitting, one can turn that ritual sitting into a kanhua method.
Asking thus: "Who is the one who is sitting?"
"Who is sitting on his ass right now?"
Of course one doesn't need to sit to do this, one can do it while washing the dishes.
Doing it in the midst of activity is even more powerful.
Doing it when everything goes wrong or there's confusion or terrible things happening, is even more powerful.
"OK now things are serious, my mother is sick, I lost my job, there's no time for the Zen things now ..." - but if you do the "Zen thing" only when things go OK, how much is it really worth? It's a hobby! It's right when everything goes wrong, when there's no time for zazen, that is the best time for introspection.
"What is Buddha?" - "A dried piece of shit." - Why, why? Inquire when things go wrong like that.
Asking when desire is high, or even while doing sex, or even while breaking the precepts, has great power, too. (Of course you shouldn't break the precepts or do anything wrong; But if you do and bring up a Saying then, it's very strong, the results.)
Some pointers from my past efforts, maybe it'll be helpful to someone.
Posted by: Pathfinder | February 01, 2012 at 06:05 PM