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Guided Meditation: Ritual

If you want to do a sound check, I don't think I hear anything. I'll keep talking. Okay, you all hear me okay? Yeah, good in the back.

Good morning, and it is good to be here with you all in the hall and also those who are on YouTube through the webcast. We will begin this morning with meditation. I'll offer a little light guidance in our meditation, and the invitation is to consider the meditation as a ritual. For today's practice, whether it is the silent sit or the Dharma talk, consider this an unfolding ritual.

We will begin this ritual with the sound of a bell.

As a ritual, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end to a process. The beginning involves setting ourselves up or preparing ourselves for meditation. Take a few generous moments to allow yourselves to arrive. Maybe arrive here and now. If you want to take a few long, deep breaths, as you breathe out, ride along with the out-breath to arrive at this space, in this moment.

There is the arriving process. It is as if we are entering into a sacred temple, an ancient temple—a temple of this body, this mind, and this heart. Maybe there is already a sense of reverence and humility as we arrive and enter into this temple of the body, taking a seat in the center of our being. Take a few moments just to check out the global sense of our being: the physicality of the body, the posture, and the moods and emotions that came along. Becoming present and aware.

Momentarily, we can settle onto our seats, as if we are sitting in the center of the temple—the temple of this body, this mind, and this heart. Taking a few moments to feel and sense into the contact of the lower half of the body with the floor or chair, supported by the earth underneath, settling into the seat.

Maybe feel into this grounded solidity of the earth element in the body, naturally settling downwards, naturally grounding. Maybe feel into the bones—the sit bones, thigh bones, firm and steady—and the bones throughout the spine and torso. The earth element in the body naturally grounds and settles down.

Transitioning to the next part of the ritual of our meditation, from this grounded place, may we open to whatever arises and passes away in our experience. As a ritual, we open to the gifts of the process, letting go of our wanting, desires, and expectations. We offer ourselves up to what arises and emerges in our experience. Welcome the movements of the breath. Welcome the dancing sensations in the body. Welcome the waves of emotions. Treat each experience as if we are offering blessings to all of those experiences, nothing excluded.

[Long period of silence]

In these last few minutes of our sitting together, I invite you to gently reflect or notice if there are any effects when we consider our meditation as a ritual. Maybe it is a felt sense in the body, a felt sense in the heart, or new perspectives in the mind. Whatever it may be, notice any effects that may be present or not. Rituals often touch us on a subconscious level. If there are any effects, allow them to emerge through the body. We will end the sitting with the sound of a bell.

Ritual

Feel free to take a moment if you need to shift your posture or stand up, doing what is needed for the body and for your being. This will transition us to the next part of our unfolding ritual, which involves speaking and listening. Today, not surprisingly, the topic I had in mind to share is ritual and our Dharma practice.

I realize that this is not a popular topic in Western Theravada centers, especially lay community centers. We can have a certain kind of relationship when the word "ritual" gets uttered. Some may consider it superficial or even cultural baggage, and not necessary as part of Buddhist practice. I can totally relate to that. I have been to Chinese temples with a lot of rich rituals involving incense burning and merit-making, and so there can be a sense of baggage associated with it.

And yet, rituals, whether seen or unseen, are part of many religious traditions and spiritual life. In cultures like the Asian culture I came from, rituals are quite significant and prominent. I remember once visiting Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi^[1], who lives in a Chinese monastery. I asked him what the biggest difference is between Western Theravada traditions and Chinese Buddhism in his experience. He said much is in common, but where he lives there are a lot of rituals, and there can be long hours and hours of bowing, chanting, and different forms of rituals.

Rituals are rich in many different cultures. In a Western Theravada center like the Insight Meditation Center (IMC), many of us who come may not even notice any rituals whatsoever, but rituals are here. For those of you who come through the door—and this may not be so obvious for those online on YouTube—what we often do upon entering IMC is put our shoes on the shelves. We come into the meditation hall, some people bow in front of the Buddha statue, and then we take our seats. At the end of the session, people often bow out and leave. So there are rituals present even in a center like this, but many of us may not associate them with being rituals. Today I want to highlight some of the dimensions of ritual.

I personally was not paying attention to the effects of rituals until much later in my own Buddhist path. But as I reflect back, I can say that rituals played a quite significant role in my own Dharma life; I just didn't realize it for a long time. My first exposure to this was when I first came to the United States. Very shortly after, I lost my grandpa, who was very close to us. He lived with our family for my whole life up to that time. He passed away in China, and it was very clear that I wouldn't be able to make my way back to be with him for a variety of reasons. I was very confused, a little lost, and not sure what to do.

I happened to go to a Pure Land Buddhist Sangha^[2] in my university town through a college roommate I was staying with. Not knowing what was possible, I just told them about the situation I was in. They spontaneously put together a ritual that remembered and honored my grandpa for who he was. I had just offered a very brief description, and they put this very beautiful and simple ritual around it. They chanted and offered a blessing for him to have a blessed afterlife. I didn't really know much about it, but it did something to my heart. I felt quite at ease and felt that there was some kind of closure out of this. That was my first encounter with Buddhist ritual, and in some miraculous way, it probably created a certain affinity between myself and Buddhism. I got very curious about it and began exploring and seeking out Buddhist practices and teachings.

Rituals can have many potent functions in our spiritual life. I want to share a quote from an article that Gil Fronsdal^[3] wrote about rituals in Buddhism:

"Rituals are a form of language that expresses many dimensions of our human condition, including our relationship to others and to our spiritual life."

Later in the article, he says:

"Rituals share many characteristics with poetry, theater, and dance in evoking emotions, intuition, and new perspectives. Because rituals touch more aspects of our mind and heart than simple prose and didactic explanations, rituals, like the arts, can enrich our lives and engage the full range of our being."

I really resonated with that. Today, I want to share just a few dimensions of the functions and effects of rituals in our Dharma practice as pointers. There may be many other dimensions accessible to some of you, but these are just a few I will point out today.

Ritual as Heart Practice

The first dimension is the relationship between rituals and our hearts. When we engage in rituals wholeheartedly, rituals themselves become a heart practice. Just like the Brahmaviharas^[4], rituals become a heart practice that can deeply touch and open our hearts and our beings. In my own case, rituals opened my heart in ways that were beyond my own logical, analytical mind; they touched something deeper inside of me.

In our traditions, a simple bowing, when done wholeheartedly, can become an expression of many beautiful qualities of our heart. It can express reverence toward whatever we are bowing toward—it could even just be the earth, the sky, and everything in between, animate or inanimate. Another possibility is that bowing carries a deep sense of gratitude and humility. The gesture of two hands coming together can also symbolize coming into harmony and unifying in some way within our being.

In recent months, I have been carrying out a ritual of 108 bows each morning before my own meditation practice. This particular practice was called forth because, for a while, I was encountering a lot of illness, aging, and death—some really close in my own family, as well as people I knew and people I didn't know well. With so much going on, I felt a calling in my heart to express a deeper sense of care, love, and compassion. One day, I just decided I was going to do 108 bows each morning, dedicating each bow to whoever came to my mind for their well-being and peace. I thought that maybe after a while, as people got better, I would stop at some point. But new people keep getting added to this list, so it hasn't stopped.

This practice has really become my own metta (loving-kindness) practice, a Brahmavihara practice done not necessarily sitting still on the cushion, but in the form of bowing. Simple practices like this can really open our hearts in new ways that we may not have been open to previously.

Ritual as a Process of Transformation

The second function or effect of rituals is that the process involves making ourselves available to its unfolding. When we offer ourselves up to this process, it can become a force of transformation. A ritual often leads participants through a process and opens them to new perspectives or new insights. But transformation is only possible if we put down some of our self-centered agendas, like wanting to get something. I remember going to the Chinese temple in the past; oftentimes, people go there wanting to get something, or to get blessed by something according to their belief system. But the true process of ritual is really an invitation to open to something, rather than getting something.

One of the most significant Buddhist rituals that functions as this kind of transformation is the ritual of taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—the Triple Gem^[5]. Some of you have probably done a refuge ceremony yourselves, and others may have done it on retreats. Taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha for life evokes an alignment of our life with something that we aspire to.

For some people, this can be quite significant and has a lot of implications, perhaps making a commitment to how we live our lives. I remember for myself, many years ago when I did this refuge ceremony with my monastic teacher, my preceptor offered me a small card. On it was my Chinese Dharma name, the date the ceremony took place, and the refuges and precepts printed on the two sides. At the end of this ceremony, I felt as if I was reborn into a new life. It was a kind of birthday into the Buddha's lineage. It was a very intuitive, gut feeling, but it was rather significant. Transformation happens very gradually over time, but if I reflect back, this was a significant ritual in my life. I already began to shift, little by little, how I chose to live my life.

Ritual as Heightened Awareness

The third function, which is maybe one of the most important, is that when rituals are done consciously or with heightened awareness, they open us up to many dimensions of our inner being that might otherwise remain unseen and unknown. I remember, especially in the early phase of my practice, sometimes coming to the practice carrying a mainstream, materialistic attitude. We think, "I'm coming here to get something," or "I'm coming to get rid of something I don't like." So we try to be really quick: we get to our sitting cushion, we sit, and when it ends, we dash out.

When we show up with this kind of narrow focus, narrowing ourselves into this set of things that we want to gain, the practice will probably have a different effect on us. We end up using it as something to get more things and get rid of things we don't like.

I'll share another example that was a vivid teaching of this sort for myself. I was in a Chinese Sangha for a long time. We had a beloved Taiwanese Dharma teacher who came to offer a teaching. We hadn't seen her for a long time, so we were all very enthusiastic. We got to our little center early, set up the desk and the mic, and were all sitting on the front row waiting. When the teacher showed up, she walked down the hallway—it was really just a living room in an old house in Sunnyvale, not a big place. She walked into the room, got to the desk, and sat down. She just looked around at the different parts of the room, and then her eyes landed on a corner where there was a big pile of messy cables all around. The cables connected to the mic were a big spaghetti right over in the corner. She turned her face, looked at us, and said, "That too is the practice."

We were all sitting on the front row feeling really embarrassed. I don't remember much about the talk, but I did remember that moment. It was a significant teaching for me. When we begin to open the field of our practice, ritual is a vehicle for us to begin to open to all of the processes included in our practice, including the sitting, the speaking, and how we show up.

Living Each Day as a Ritual

Each ritual has a beginning, a middle, and an end. When we walk into our space, this is a part of the beginning: how we walk into the space, how we take our seat. Even in our sitting meditation, I invite you to consider how we begin the process of meditation as a ritual. What are the orientations that we have? We open ourselves up to all of these different dimensions of it. When we consider our practice as a ritual, a sense of sacredness can come in, as if it is attaching our heart right there. Sometimes when I consider meditation as a whole field of ritual, whatever practice we are engaging in, we are already bringing the heart practice with us and integrating all of these dimensions into our practice.

I just want to take a pause to see what's coming up right now. One thing that comes up for me is that, in our relationship with meditation, we are often offered meditation instructions around breath, body, emotions, and thoughts. Instead of considering these as instructions for our meditation, we can maybe see them as a description of the unfolding meditative process—describing a meditative ritual. When we see it this way, it may help us let go of "me doing this" or "me doing the instructions." Instead, we are offering ourselves to this process of meditation, or the meditative process is being offered to us through the words and phrases in the instructions. In this way, we may receive all of those instructions through a sense of opening to something, rather than trying to get or receive something.

There are many possibilities when this is done, and different kinds of beauty can come in. For me today, in the middle of the meditation, I opened my eyes and looked at all the folks sitting here, and imagined the folks meditating together on YouTube. There was an immediate sense of belonging to the community that came along, and belonging, maybe, to the world that we are a part of. When we are not cluttered by our thoughts of wanting and desires, clarity can also come in. This is where new perspectives can arise as part of Insight practice. The insights may come along, maybe not even expressed in words just yet; maybe it is some embodied way of how we walk out of this meditation hall when we finish. Allow this ritual process to be expansive, including all the different elements that come along with it.

Sometimes I consider if Dharma practice itself is an overarching ritual that has its beginning, middle, and end. It has many rituals within it, like a mandala or fractals. In our session today, from the time we walked into IMC all the way to the end, we had many rituals. We had the ritual of sitting meditation. We had the ritual of the Dharma talk, engaging in speaking and listening. We may have another small ritual towards the end where there is a community gathering.

Can we consider incorporating these kinds of dimensions into our practice? Can we treat each day as if we are living a ritual of the day? How do we wake up? How do we want to live the day, and how do we want to end the day? I don't have a fixed idea about this, but the invitation is for you to consider the possibility and how it might affect your own practice.

There may be many different forms of rituals needed for different seasons, different situations, and different days. Yet, no matter what rituals we engage in, it is an opportunity to live with a clear mind and an open heart. May the ritual of our practice allow us to touch the depths of our being. May it support all beings. Thank you for your kind attention.

Reflections and Q&A

We will open up for some reflections, questions, or sharing you may have. You may have your own relationship with this.

Participant 1: You look like a rock star. [Laughter] I ask this with a lot of hesitation. I thought about whether I should ask or not. What I call myself is not averse to rituals as such, especially being raised in India where it is part of the culture. I have gone from not being okay with them to being okay with them. Although I am not too versed in the Theravada style of literature, from what I have read and heard, there is something called the path to enlightenment. From being a stream-enterer^[6] to being an arahant, the first step says that the stream-enterer loses their attachment to rites and rituals. It took a lot to ask this question because I don't want to sound cocky, but it's hard for my ego to reconcile that fact with this sense of attachment to rituals.

Ying Chen: That is a great question. I kind of contemplated whether to talk about that or not! It's interesting that the Pali term (sīlabbata-parāmāsa)^[7] gets translated as "rites and rituals," but the Pali meaning is not necessarily rites and rituals. What it is really signifying is that the first stage of awakening involves letting go of a dogmatic holding of certain rules. In fact, the direct translation wouldn't strictly map to "rights and rituals."

In the broader Buddhist scene, especially monastic Buddhism, rituals are always a big part of it. The question is how we hold them. Are we holding them thinking, "I must do this"? The first stage of awakening is letting go of that dogmatic holding, which allows us to open up and discern what is supportive of our own heart and mind on the path of awakening, and what is not. So today, what I am offering is the possibility of considering the dimensions of ritual that might be supportive in our practice, not necessarily saying that we must all do this in a specific way, which would become a dogmatic holding. Does that make sense?

Participant 1: Yes, thank you.

Participant 2: Now that I think about it, every evening my wife and I do a sitting for 20 minutes. It has kind of become ritualistic in the way it's evolved. It's not anything where we said, "This has to be done this way or that way." In fact, it wouldn't be formally approved, so to speak, because the cat gets on her lap because it's so settled! We do this, and it has evolved out of necessity—especially due to my wife's challenges with sleeping due to the heavenly messengers^[8], the world situation, and all these different things. It seems to have helped calm her, helped her sleep, and helped me too, of course. I guess I can see how rituals evolve in that way.

Ying Chen: Beautiful. Part of what I was hoping to point to is beginning to become conscious of how those processes and elements of ritual can have different effects on us. For me, I spent many years not realizing a ritual was actually doing something to my own heart and mind. But by becoming conscious of it, you see, "Oh, this can be very supportive." Then we begin to be able to learn what really supports us and what does not.

Participant 2: Yes, recognition has a role. It's a noticing and recognizing, "Oh, this has become part of my life."

Ying Chen: Yeah, great.

Participant 3: Ying Chen, thank you so much for your talk. What came to mind for me was that many years ago, I was pretty deeply bothered by feelings after my mother passed away. I hadn't been with her at the time, so I felt bad about that. I looked over my life with her and thought of a number of times I had been unkind, or not as kind as I could have been, and I couldn't really forgive myself for that. Somehow, I came up with this idea of creating a ritual for myself. I wrote on little pieces of paper every unkind thing that I could think of—of course, there were lots of little pieces of paper! Then I filled a pan with water, and one by one at my gas stove, I burned these and threw them in the water. At the end, I tossed out the water, and I felt as if my mother, if she had been alive, was holding me and saying, "I know you love me, and I forgive you." It really worked. That was just a one-time ritual, but it was powerful for me.

Ying Chen: Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that story. A grief ritual is powerful for many people. For myself, with my grandpa passing away, there was definitely a sense of grief and confusion, and the ritual offered such a closure and a healing. Being open to new possibilities is also another form of transforming. Otherwise, we could be holding a lot of regrets that just keep attracting us. A ritual process allows things that are unprocessed to be held in safety and kindness so that they can get processed. Thank you.

Participant 4: This is a question for you, I guess. In my experience with rituals, there have been periods of time where I've hesitated to participate in them. And then I've gone back to look at it, thinking, "Maybe I should give it a second chance, or a third or fourth chance." Is that a typical cycle?

Ying Chen: Yes, I appreciate this question. I think it connects with the first question in some ways. Sometimes we may have been exposed to ways of doing rituals that are harmful to us, and we can kind of shut ourselves off. I certainly had a very dismissive attitude towards them at the very beginning because of my own exposure—going to this big temple where it is smoky and crowded, people are busy getting things, and I just felt very lost in them. I didn't have a positive relationship with rituals until I began to notice that some of the rituals I participated in—maybe not even fully aware, operating at a subconscious level—were actually doing something to me. I began to become aware that it wasn't what I had associated with it before. I began to open to the possibility that maybe this had something different to offer me.

So yes, we can go through cycles, especially when some rituals are done in a very dogmatic way—like, "You have got to do this"—which makes us feel very distant. Thank you for the question. It's a whole territory. I just invite you to consider opening to this, little by little, and becoming aware of the effects on us.

I will be around for a little while. Are we going to be outside or in the Community Hall? Okay, I will stand somewhere.

Thank you everyone for being here. Let's end with a typical ritual in our scene, which is a dedication of merit^[9].

May we all just take a moment to settle into our bodies and our seats. Bring forth, from these last few hours of being together, any form of goodness that you can touch in your own being—in small ways or big ways. Allow this goodness to expand and touch your whole being. May it support our well-being. May the glow of this goodness expand in all directions, and may it support all beings everywhere.

May all beings have well-being. May all beings be free. Thank you.