"Nothing special"
Invincible_summer
Heavy Metal DhammaWe(s)t coast, Canada Veteran
This concept is especially prevalent in Zen Buddhism... that Buddhism (or Zen in particular) is "nothing special." It's simply engaging with our life experience as it is.
I don't disagree with that - in fact, in recent months I've come to really understand that Zen is not just sitting and staring at a wall or reading Japanese philosophy, but also the washing, the walking, the minutiae of everyday life.
But, if Zen is "nothing special," then why bother with any of the bowing, chanting, robes, formalities that come with going to a zendo?
Of course, none of those things are "essential' to Zen practice, but it's prevalent enough that it makes it seem like if you want to be part of the club...
I'm not trying to talk smack about Zen or Buddhist tradition, really. I just wonder what you guys think about balancing Buddhist practice with ritual, the practicality vs the exotic Eastern image that we Buddhists sometimes get caught up in.
Comments
Well this is precisely why I don't follow Mahayana Schools....
Not me, I'm fine not belonging to it.
After all, you know what Groucho Marx said...
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My practice is so devoid of whistles, bells trimmings and anything else, I sometimes wonder myself whether I'm missing out on something.
Then I keep reading thread after thread about attachments, clinging to stuff, enjoying certain pastimes, that I think "Nah. You're ok, leave it as it is...."
If I may offer my somewhat ignorant opinion, I believe bowing, chanting, robes, and formalities are part of every Buddhist tradition, including Theravada, at the monastic level. But if you are not a monk or nun, I suppose you can jettison most of those outward forms and stick to the essentials. In Zen that would probably be: the five precepts, and sitting and action meditation (yes, the dreaded samu!). Oh, also don't forget--don't do evil, do only good, and actualize good for others.
haha this is a funny spot of life i think
so you go through the motions, sometimes the motions feel real and genuine, sometimes rote
the highways are there if you take your car there.
well-traversed paths of the wise are worthwhile to emulate/ follow ..
sometimes genuine sometimes "let me get to the next thing"
whatever your pathway preferences may be, habit is overcome by habit(!)
so establishing patterns is good, especially if they are the kind that tap you back into your motivation.
/just some words for you to consider
By the grace of the Buddhas we have a whole raft of approaches..from a minimalist, almost protestant, stripped down Buddhism, to the whole bells and smells and colour of the Vajrayana and every shade in between. We live in an age where all this is available to us.
We should celebrate that fact. It can be confusing at first..until we find what our heart needs.
At which point we can settle down and work with it.
The only " mistake " is to try to persuade others that our path should also be their path..
That their path is too elaborate, or too simple, or too different from what suits us.
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
This is how it was explained to me: If you're familiar with jazz music, you'll know that jazz music is actually intricately structured. There is a chord progression that all the musicians in a band are following and a melodic structure (basic tune form) that they will more or less be following. In addition, the music will be structured by the time signature. Without this structural framework, you'd end up with a messy cacophony. But with this underlying structure in place, the musicians are free to fly into wild, varied, and almost infinite improvisation.
In Zen, the ritual provides the formal structure for attention and embodiment. In other words, it's exactly like meditation. Meditation provides a structure -- a protocol -- to follow. Without that structure, you wouldn't be doing anything different than what you usually do: sitting about, daydreaming, thinking, worrying, obsessing, ruminating, etc. But the actual heart of meditation is not in the rote following of instructions, but in your embodiment of mindfulness within the given structure: the actual act of bringing yourself into peaceful presence, and then seeing clearly and letting go of what is unnecessary. The breath forms the scaffolding by which you can let go. It's like gravity: you need something to let go into (or onto), or else you'll be flailing about aimlessly. The peculiar ceremonies and rites of a particular sect are just what happened to have evolved in that particular lineage. They are nothing special in and of themselves. In the same way, there is nothing particularly special about following the breath. It just happens to have been the practice that was chosen and passed down. You could reasonably achieve the same ends with any simple, repetitive activity that doesn't require that much mental analysis.
Nice saying: Understanding is knowing to get out of the way of an oncoming bus. Practice is for the bus you didn't see coming.
Back for a couple of days.
@Invincible_summer
When a student acts as if some things are particularly sacred in Zen, while others are not...
they will often be taught that nothing is special.
If a student asserts that nothing is really sacred, they will often be taught about sanctifying the mundane, hence the attention towards rite, & ritual.
The fancy script over many Zen monastic entrance gates simply says
"Put your slippers straight".
Just another teaching to be mindful about whatever we cling onto or push away.
@Federica said:
(whispering with wide eyes and a pained expression) Me too . . . !
I do not quote near as much sutta as . . . well, as is relevant . . . simply because I don't know much well enough to do service to the suttas.
The trouble is, I do read suttas. They just sound so similar, so OFTEN, to other texts and ideas that I tend to remember and cite more psychology or social science, or use those kinds of phrases and words. If anyone out there has been an armchair psychologist (with no allegiances) like me, you'd know exactly what I mean.
I don't think the suttas are saying the same thing as the more modern texts, I think it's the other way around, which is why I'm hanging out on a Buddhist forum and not a psychology forum. This is where it all started and the Buddha got it right 2500 years ago. What more can a gal ask for?
As for bells and whistles, frills and furbelows, I don't even have an altar.
Yet my life is powerfully subsumed with the living dharma. It is a constant, and in a way always has been before I knew what it was.
Seems to me to be to see your true nature and get enlightenment.
Yup, you're right. Both Mahayana and Theravada have all sorts of rituals and stuff attached.
And I understand the purpose of ritual and that there's always a time and place for it.
But if a good chunk of the practice is essentially "don't be a bad person, and meditate often," then what makes Buddhism different from secular humanism?
Like Jack Kornfield said in one of his books, "After Enlightenment, the laundry".
I don't know about other ritual aspects of Zen, but bowing (and in Tibetan Buddhism--prostrations) are, they say, for maintaining humility.
Don't get attached to external trappings. It's what's going on inside that counts.
:om: .
Kia Ora @invincible_summer,
Buddhism comes with a step by step instruction manual...Plus a "Worry back guaranty!" .
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Metta Shoshin .
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We reject 'empty ritual' because it has a form and we cling to any 'experience of emptiness'.
. . . I am sure I read somewhere that 'emptiness is form and form is emptiness'. :buck: .
Bow to the empty ritual. Nothing performing.
I never seemed to fit in...'the club'. I've always had a problem conforming... lololol
The firewood, laundry,sweeping, cleaning toilets and working.....yep....that's the club I belong to.... :vimp: ....
We have a variety of temperaments in practice as well as in other things.
" Meditate as you can..not as you can't " was advice I was given early on.
I like ritual..I find it focuses me very quickly. I realise that for others it is superfluous at best and distracting at worst.
But for me the lighting of candles and incense. The chanting and bowing and prostrations, the whole kit and caboodle of Puja, centres me swiftly.
Its the equivalent of about 40 minutes anapanasati.
At first it can tend to create a persona around the person participating in the ritual..but that soon passes. And it becomes, for the right person, an effective skillful means.
^^^ That is why I have continued some ritual at home and enjoy some at the Temple.
Gets me....in the mood/in the right head space. To this day, walking through the mall and I pass a store selling and smelling like incense will stop me in my tracks....Chanting too. ..
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Me too.
Like Citta, I've also found ritual (e.g., prostrations/bowing, bells, incense) to be a great way to focus. Perhaps like the tea ceremony in Zen?
I have not experienced that @Eugene, but I would like to.
Semantics mainly. Nothing special does not have to mean worthless. Nothing special just means ordinary or basic. It's what we lose sight of in our everyday run-in with life, the basics.
@namarupa, that is not so.
Semantics has not come into it, at all, other than by your mentioning it.
Nobody has insinuated or hinted that 'nothing special' is associated with being 'worthless'.
And frankly, the 'basics' is what we (habitually and continually) blindly focus on, when we should indeed be stilling the mind in preparation for something 'special'.
I actually meant to quote this comment by @invincible_summer. Sorry for not adding it.
I just think that the purpose of calling it "nothing special" means that one would be losing sight of its meaning if one becomes too attached to those rites and rituals.
Oh, right. Gotcha!
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What meaning?
A RAFT BECOMES DAFT
when you see the raft as the END, and not the MEANS.
"Nothing special" may also mean "something quite ordinary". What is so extra-ordinary about paying homage to the ordinary?
Peace
Exactly so.
We can remember we are in a time of great change in the dharma. We are probably not Japanese, Chinese Chan ritualists, we may not fully comprehend the form and nature. However everyone can and does appreciate the potential benefits of meditative cooking, cleaning, weeding and other chores, especially in the task orientated West.
If we are in a 'tradition', we may have to allow for an expression still awaiting integration with its new host culture.
Nothing ordinary. Everything special.
I think I've been misunderstood a bit here.
When I am questioning the "nothing special" concept, I'm not saying that ritual is useless. I actually like ritual. I'm not saying that Zen Buddhism is useless - I pick on Zen just because this 'nothing special' concept is most prevalent within that tradition.
I've been practicing a mix of Zen and Theravada for quite a few years now. I've just been doing some reflection on my spiritual life and thought I'd play the devil's advocate... asking myself "Why am I doing this? What do these contradictions mean?" Now, I'm asking the forum so I can get some other points of view, and so we can all look at our spiritual lives and ask re-visit why we do what we do.
I just don't understand how the Zen school can emphasize the ordinary (washing, cleaning, cooking, walking, etc) while simultaneously putting value on form, ritual, and tradition. You have to bow and chant properly, lest you break zendo etiquette, yet you are also supposed to see the ritual as "nothing special/just ordinary."
Even some ordained Zen guys say stuff like "my ordination means nothing," or "I'm not a Buddhist," or "there's nothing special about Zen." If I were an outsider to Buddhism (and Zen in particular), why should I be sold on it if it's just a less judgmental way of living our everyday lives? What makes it a spiritual path worth following?
Again, just because I'm asking these questions does not mean I think these teachings are "wrong" or "incorrect."
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So how long have you wanted to be a Jehovah's Witness @Invincible_summer?
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Just kidding.....
This is one of the reasons i think I don't practise Zen Buddhism, although there are some appealing aspects to it. I like the poeticism of Koans and particularly Haikus, and some Zen stories are extremely thought-provoking and pertinent. But I find this 'nothing special' aspect over-simplifies things to the extent that, as an outsider, I might think that Zen practitioners are too flippant, and self-contradictory; taking themselves very seriously and solemnly, but also dismissing everything as 'Mu!'.
I remember once reading - or more accurately, beginning to read - a book on Zen Buddhism written by a female Zen master.
To my shame I forget both the book and the author. More pertinently, I forget what made me abandon it and not read further, but I DO remember it was a point I simply could not agree with, and found issue with, not only in what I had come to adopt as practice, but also through comparison to some Theravada view-point.
That sounds horribly vague, and i apologise for not being able to expand further, but I do remember thinking "If Zen teaches this, and holds it as dictum, I can't apply myself to such thinking."
Drat. That has now made me determined to see if I can find the reference!!
I apologize @invincible_summer. I did not meant to imply that you were saying that, but just wanted to make a point about those that do take it litterally.
Kia Ora,
I guess one could look at it this way : "Special" in the Zen sense (or zence .
.. ) creates the illusion of separation, hence nothing special ...no illusion....
Metta Shoshin .
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