z: The robes

When you come to the zen center you inevitably see people in robes. Most of the people wearing those robes look very serious, don’t really speak, and rarely make eye contact. They can seem really intimidating. But then you see those same people at lunch or having tea and cookies and they’re smiling and laughing and making jokes. I used to see this as a Jekyl and Hyde situation: like they were one person when they were in robes and another when they were out. But I know that people don’t become another person by just putting on robes so I’ve been trying to figure out why they seem so different. What I think I’ve figured out is that I have my own stories around robes and seriousness.

I’ve mentioned before that I was raised Catholic and so my exposure to robes has been with priests. In my church and in my experience at that church, the priests were revered as the gatekeepers to knowledge and to acceptance into God’s favor. They were who we “confessed” our sins to and who gave us “punishment” or “atonement” for our sins. We were afraid of them and, like Santa Claus, they seemed to be watching us to determine who had been good and who had been bad. In a nutshell, they were the guys who were constantly judging us and the best way to win their favor was to follow the rules and be good.

Looking over my blogposts I realize that my interactions with the practitioners at the zen center totally mimic my interactions with the priests of my childhood: I am constantly looking for their approval, totally afraid that they’re judging me, and desperately learning their rules so that I can follow them and be good.  But here’s the thing, all of that comes from my own history with robes, not with my actual experience with robes at the zen center. The abbot has never told me I was good or bad, the practitioners haven’t sent me off to chant some sutra five times to atone for breaking a commandment, and no one, absolutely no one, is watching my form in the zendo to see if it’s good or bad (or if they are then they’re just as bad ‘cause clearly, they aren’t meditating if they’re watching me!).

And then there’s the seriousness factor. It’s true, the people in robes often do have a serious look on their face, rarely talk, and often either avert their eyes or focus somewhere off in to the distance. I have two things to say about this.

You know how the people in the pictures that were taken when cameras first came out all look super serious, how no one is smiling? And then there’s a point in history where people actually are smiling in pictures? It turns out that it’s not that we got to a happy place in history, it’s that the technology of cameras improved. It’s my understanding that when cameras first came out, everyone had to be perfectly still because if you moved, the picture would come out blurry. Eventually, as cameras improved, people didn’t have to be as still so people were able to smile. But we equate that frozen pose, that stillness, with seriousness and, in some ways, sadness.

Now think about when you meditate. You are focusing on your breath, you are quieting your thoughts, you are being still- kinda like the guy in the photograph! That whole seriousness on the part of the people in robes is actually, I think at least, what we look like when we meditate. The serious look, lack of eye contact, and silence is just people in robes, meditating. It’s just that, unlike us who set up a time to meditate each day, they’ve vowed to meditate, to be present, throughout their day.  

So, I’m starting to get that the robes aren’t judging me and the faces are just still, not somber or sad. But I’m also finding how strong this history is. I haven’t been to church on a regular basis in 22 years and here it is, following me for an entire year before I saw it. I think it’s going to take me a while to create a new story around robes at the zen center- one that more accurately represents the people wearing those robes: compassionate individuals who have chosen to devote their lives to being present, to experiencing the world as it is, and to helping others to wake up and see the world too.