Returning to the Temple by Rev. Eugene Bush

During these last two years our practices with the rituals in the temple setting were, at first, minimized to the simple act of bowing together before and after zoom zazen. During many months we then practiced a simplified version of service, knowing that people might have only one bell at home and limited space for bowing. Gradually we have returned to our full expressions of temple rituals for service, bowing and chanting together in person with a zoom option.   

To me it is more evident than ever that our behavior in the temple is training for behavior outside of the temple. As we are bowing together, making the effort to notice each other’s pace, chanting in harmony, the body begins to remember what it feels like to coincide our actions with the sounds of the bell, a gentle awareness of moving as a community grows. Our capacity for attending to the world beyond our small concerns increases, we now have an expanded view for finding an appropriate response.  

Drawing from the teaching of Suzuki Roshi:

 As you have some way of sitting on a black cushion, we have some way of observing our rituals or ceremony in the Buddha Hall. The point of our zazen practice is to be free from thinking mind and from emotional activity. In short, that is the practice of selflessness. In our observation of rituals, the point is to be free from selfish ideas.

The practice of rituals is the practice of selflessness. … we do it to forget ourselves and become one. … If you understand how you observe even one precept, you can observe the rest of the precepts and you can practice zazen, you can observe rituals. Zazen practice and observation of rituals or precepts cannot be separated…. So, the way we practice zazen, the way we practice rituals, and the way of life of a Buddhist or Zen student is fundamentally the same.

Suzuki Roshi, in a 1970 Windbell Dharma talk