A student recently asked What is Zen Tradition? Why do we bow, do walking meditation, use bells and instruments, and chant certain sutras?
It reminds me of a question asked of the Dali Lama when he was in Salt Lake City many years ago. While inside the Governor’s mansion he sprinkled water into the air. When asked why, he said, I don’t know, but we’ve been doing it along time.
Similarly the abbot of the Japanese Zen Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles was asked by a student why did they do kinin, or walking meditation. His attendant (Taizan Maezumi) simply answered: “When we walk, we just walk.”
Another instance was a conversation I had with Genpo Roshi at Hatch Point during a desert retreat there in 2004. An owl flew over my head, just a few feet above. I asked Roshi the meaning of that, he said simply “an owl flew over."
When it’s time to bow, we bow, when it’s time to ring the bell, we ring the bell, when it’s time to chant, we chant. It’s really as simple as that. That is what is happening in our lives. When it’s cold we put on a coat, when we’re tired we go to sleep, when it’s time to walk to our car we walk to our car.
It’s very simple. The ordinary is extra-ordinary. We often want to attach meaning and wanting to know rather than just being with what is.
When the historical Buddha Shakyamuni held up the flower at Mount Gurputa before a crowd of thousands, without using words or letters, he transmitted the fundamental teaching to Mahakashapa: whatever we do from morning to night is it.
When we bow it’s an expression of gratitude, the sound of the bell is part of time keeping during sitting, the chants are the teachings of the Zen Masters in the lineage, which when we chant we ourselves are expressing the words of the buddhas and ancestors.
