Full prostration

At a pagoda yesterday, I saw a statue of a monk, in full prostration to a succession of Buddhas. If you can imagine a series of steps: the top, second, and third step held statues of seated, smiling Buddhas. The fourth step held a laid out statue, long and hour-glass shaped, with a person’s outstretched arms- hands clasped together- at the top, their head and torso next, and their knees tucked beneath their backside, ending with the upturned soles of their feet.
“Oh, wow, full prostration,” I exclaimed in surprise as I saw this. I had not seen this once in all of the pagodas I have seen over the past two days in Myanmar. But the second thing that surprised me, was my affection for it- I almost longed for it. And that was pretty weird, given my prior history with bowing which is, in a nutshell: no thank you, I’d rather not supplicate to you or anyone else, I’ll just stay here standing or sitting but not bowing to you.
 And even in this statue, the guy doing the full prostration was, physically, below the other Buddha statues and, in some ways, he was three times below, since he was on the fourth step. All these things should have made me uncomfortable, should have brought up my issues around assertion of self, loss of independence, loss of control, insistence on equality but instead when I saw it, I felt happy, and I even thought, “Awww, I miss bowing.”
And that surprised me, so I stood there, a little longer, to kind of feel what was going on. I looked at the guy prostrating, and I looked at the Buddha statue above him and what I felt was, that they were connected. That in supplication, in bowing, in giving up the self or one’s assertion of independence, there is a removal of boundaries, a removal of blockings, and that removal allows for touch, for reaching out, for communion between two people.
I have to admit that I pictured Paul as the Buddha statue, sitting there, maybe in dokusan, maybe in a dharma talk, and the person, kind of receiving Paul in their supplication posture, like Paul’s teachings and essence were able to flow out of him and into the other person- and that these teachings were kind of flowing back and forth between them now, that any barriers were gone.
I also thought about the way that I have been bowing lately. It started one morning during service when I was in the front row so I didn’t really have anyone to follow in terms of timing for the full prostrations. I looked to my left and saw the Ino, so I figured I’d follow him, exactly. And it worked, and it was weird. I kind of lost myself in timing with him, like we were one entity, and that felt both surreal and comforting at the same time.
Then lately, I have started to bow in exact timing with the doshi on Friday nights in the zendo. See, I’m the jiko on Friday nights and one of the responsibilities is that you open the doshi door before the doshi leaves. The instructions for this suggest that you start walking toward the door to open it just as the doshi reaches for their zagu (their bowing mat). So I kind of like to watch the doshi like a hawk to see if I can catch them grabbing their zagu and know exactly when to leave (yes, these are the fun games that I make up for myself….)  But now, I don’t just wait for the grabbing of the zagu, I try to watch the entire bowing of the doshi, and match my bows perfectly with them.
And finally, I’ve tried to bow with the crowd. Some days, during service, if everyone is timing themselves perfectly with the bells we are all one entity, we are all one big bow and that is really cool. And I think that all of this bowing in time with others is helping me to see that bowing isn’t about a power imbalance or one person being more or less to another, it’s about doing things together. I would say it’s about giving up the self for the greater good of the community but it doesn’t even feel like that anymore because my self is no longer in competition with the community. I’m not giving up my self when I bow with the community, I’m just as much a part of the community as everyone else is.
As I stood in front of the statue, I imagined myself, in full prostration and it felt like I was floating, like I was hovering at the foot of this statue, this Buddha. But at the same time, I was connected, the Buddha’s hand that was touching the earth was somehow touching me too. And I honestly believe that that the only reason that hand can touch me, the only way that I am finally able to feel that connection, is because of the opening I have I have created in giving up myself and becoming part of the community.