Bowing

Up and Down In the woods at three in the morning, bowing acquires new significance.    by Jane Dobisz

Up. Down.
Up. Down.
Up. Down.

Barely awake, I tell myself to “just do it” while stealing a quick glance back at the bed. The sleeping bag looks so inviting. Thoughts run through my head about why it would be better after it gets light out. Normally an expert procrastinator, susceptible to excuses of any sort, even I can’t get away with rationalizing in this case. At 3:20 in the morning, I am alone in the middle of the woods, but it’s not like there’s anywhere else I have to be. I continue with the bows.

Up. Down.
Up. Down.
Up. Down.
 
Three hundred times. Each time a bow has been completed, I move one bead on my mala to keep count while repeating the mantra in my mind. The rhythm of the movement and the sound of the mantra working in tandem soon cut through all the foggy thinking and wake me up.

We in the West don’t bow to anything or anyone. Not to God, not to Buddha, not to our parents, not to each other. It would never occur to us to bow, because this is a democracy and we are all equal. In the East, however, everyone is always bowing to everyone else. It is a sign of respect, a greeting, a religious practice, and simply a chance to pause.

Bowing is the act of our small self bowing to our true self. Our small self is the “I, my, me” that feels like a separate person. Our true self has no idea of being separate, because it is before all ideas and thinking. Each bow is a chance to wake up from the illusion that we are somehow separate from the universe. In the physicality of palms touching the mat, of knees on the ground, and of standing up again, there is only the activity of bowing.

Zen Master Seung Sahn, in his inimitable English, says bowing is the “number-one quick way to make your karma disappear.” For twenty or more years he has done a thousand bows a day, no matter what. Sick, tired, traveling, on trains, in hotel rooms . . . he never misses them. Just watching him do that day in and day out has itself been a big teaching.

And here I am, young and strong. After only three hundred bows my legs are shaking like two jelly gummy worms. The schedule is proving to be a formidable master, and it’s only the first activity of the first day.

Thirsty now.
A cup of tea would be good.

From The Wisdom of Solitude: A Zen Retreat in the Woods, © 2003 by Jane Dobisz. Reprinted with permission of HarperCollins.

Bowing

Why Do We Bow?

Norman Fischer (1997)

Many people have this question the minute they walk into the zendo and are told to make full prostrations to the Buddha image on the altar. They come with an idea that Zen is beyond words and letters, beyond religion, beyond rules, beyond piety, and so the idea of such a thorough-going and outrageous display of what seems like religious fervor seems quite disturbing to them.

So why do we bow? I had this same question myself in the beginning of my practice. My teacher at the time took me up to the altar and let me look closely at the tiny Buddha there. He pointed out to me that the little Buddha was also bowing. So I was bowing to the Buddha and the Buddha was bowing to me. “If he can do it you can do it,” he said. I thought that was fair enough.

Bowing is just bowing. You do it mindfully, in a particular way, aware of the body and mind in the doing of it. The so-called meaning of it is extra. It’s not a symbolic or conceptual act. It’s just another form of sitting practice. You sit, you walk, the bell rings, you get up and bow. To just do what you do withfull attention and without much worry is an important part of the method in Zen.

And there’s another way of looking at it: We are bowing to an image which suggests for us. So the bowing is a training method. We offer our whole body and mind to wisdom or to compassion, opening ourselves, in the act of the bow, to that quality letting go of everything else in our life but that quality, bringing it out, making it big, fashioning it day by day, bow by bow.

When I bow to the Buddha on the main altar at Green Gulch, I train my mind deeply, creating a powerful predisposition in myself toward the development of love and appreciation for the Buddha nature that is my own nature. When I bow to Tara, I am training my mind, creating a predisposition in myself toward the feminine and active in my own nature.

This kind of training is not something most of us are used to. Our sense of training has largely to do with will or skill, and this kind of training has to do with warmth and devotion. Yes, piety. But after all, piety is all right, devotion is all right. In fact, they are very tender and splendid emotions if you can cultivate them without getting hysterical about it. It’s okay to respect Buddha and make offerings to Tara. We can appreciate Buddha and Tara and all the other figures that we practice with as “other” when we really appreciate that they aren’t really other.

The more familiar we are with ourselves as we actually are, the more comfortable we are with Tara and Manjushri and everyone else. As my first teacher said, the bowing is always mutual; there is one bow back and forth. Buddha bowing to Buddha, Tara bowing to Tara.

A long time ago, when I was serving as his attendant, I noticed that Katagiri Roshi always mumbled something as he bowed. I asked him what it was but he couldn’t tell me since it was in Japanese. Later on, I received in the mail a translation of the bowing verse, which I have used ever since.
“Bower and what is bowed to are empty by nature,” it goes. “The bodies of one’s self and others are not two/ I bow with all beings to attain liberation/ To manifest the unsurpassable mind and return to boundless truth.”

Norman Fischer is a poet, Zen priest, and the co-abbot of San Francisco Zen Center. He lives at Green Gulch Farm, where he heads the practice program.

Images: Illustrations by Robert Beer from Tibetan Thangka Painting: Methods and Madness, by David and Janice Jackson, courtesy of Snow Lion Publications. 

To bow

To bow is to no longer hold ourselves apart from the unpredictable
nature of all of our lives; it is to cultivate a heart that can
unconditionally welcome all things. We bow to what is, to all of life.

-- Christina Feldman

Perhaps this is about accepting and embracing 'not-knowing'. (CL)