Form and formlessness

There seems to be a tension in Zen between the emphasis on the formlessness stressed in the traditional teachings and the sometimes complex and rigorous forms we follow in ceremonies, including the daily ones. Do you bow? How do you bow? What order and rituals do you follow in lighting candles and offering incense? We can even go back to, how do you enter the hall? In zen, ritual starts from the moment we prepare to cross the threshold into the zendo (or, depending on your tradition, dharma hall or meditation hall) – shoe-less.

There are objections to the forms, of course, mostly stressing an understanding of the forms we follow as culturally-based. Because they are culturally based, the argument goes, they are not an integral part of the dharma. They are said to be either a quaint reminder of the culture through which the practices came to us or, worse, another veil between our ego-minds and the jewel of the dharma.

My perspective on this, and our initial style of practice, result from my years of practice in the very different traditions of Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese zen. I agree with those who see the forms of practice as culturally-based. It is difficult for me to imagine Japanese practitioners developing a practice as earthy as the Koreans have, or either of them developing a practice as gentle as the Vietnamese ones practiced in the Plum Village tradition.

At the same time, I find something undeniably powerful and moving about following the forms when I do my practice. Doing this requires me to surrender my ideas and preferences, surrender my ego-mind, and powerful magic comes from that kind of surrender, an opportunity to open into formlessness. I do three bows in the Japanese tradition every morning, and when I do these I feel a deep interconnection with all those who have done, are doing or will do this practice. I move into a space of open surrender. When I recite the Four Bodhisattva Vows every morning, I feel the Buddha and Bodhisattva in me; I connect with all those who open-heartedly developed these vows and have offered themselves to them. Here I also follow the Japanese zen tradition in a translation by Bernie Tetsugin Glassman, the current White Plum lineage holder. When I sound the bell for sitting practice, for the transition to walking practice, and when I use a bell-master during a talk, I follow the forms of the Vietnamese Plum Village tradition.

These practices focus my attention and open my heart. They are, as John Daido Loorie put it, the dance of the practice. And we all know that when we dance, we have first to learn the steps. After a while, the steps become second-nature and pure joy emanates from every movement.

Our sangha will follow this fusion of Vietnamese and Japanese practice forms. We will have a chanting book combining chants from the Japanese and Vietnamese traditions, and we will follow the examples of those cultures by chanting them in our native language, just as they do in theirs. We will have manuals for learning the practices of meditation facilitator, dharma dialogue facilitator, bell master and tea master.

Of course, we shouldn't be too rigid. The story goes that the first zen monk to teach meditation in the USA set up a zendo in San Francisco with folding chairs. When a San Franciscan who had been in temples in Japan confronted him and asked why he didn't put out meditation cushions, as were used in Asia, his simple reply was, “Americans don't sit on the floor. They sit in chairs.” May our practice be as grounded in simple reality, and respectful, as his was.

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The Summer 2015 issue of “Buddhadharma,” a quarterly practice journal put out by Shambhala Press, devotes a feature section to this dilemma. I suggest you look at these thoughtful contributions from practitioners as diverse as John Dido Loorie, Thanissara and Dzochen Pholop Rinpoche The article “Don't Strip It All Away,” by Gesshin Greenwood is particularly heartfelt.

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