I attended buddha's Enlightenment ceremony this morning at the zen center and for me, it seemed a little like a Flash Mob. The first part was all serious and formal, then we basically busted out into dancing and laughing and Alice-in-Wonderland madness, then we went right back to being all serious and quiet again. I loved it, especially seeing all the senior teachers being all serious again at the end- it just made the middle part of it all the more fun.
You know how in the Bunny Hop at weddings everyone lines up and prances around to music? Well, that's kind of what you do at buddha's Enlightenment ceremony. You don't hop or hold on to each other's waists but you definitely line up and walk together. It's just that you're walking to drums, and chanting-in-Japanese.
I can't remember how it started, but at one point, we started chanting the Haka Manya something (I think it's the Heart of Perfect Wisdom sutra in Japanese). As soon as we started chanting, people started moving. Some people turned to face the back of the Buddha Hall, some people turned to face the front of the Buddha Hall. I followed the person in front of me, and turned to face the front of the Budhha Hall. But then, we apparently were doing it wrong, so we turned and faced the other way. But then, when we turned that way, we were facing someone, instead of following them so we turned the other way. But then it happened with that person too, and so we didn't know what to do. Meanwhile, the line of people next to us was moving. At one point, the Ino directed someone to go one way but our line was still confused about how to follow. Finally, Paul came over and just told one of us to join in after the next person and the line started moving. But then the line went past us and I didn't know how to get in it and one of the senior teachers was in the line and approaching and I was afraid that he would be annoyed with me for just standing there and then, fortunately, some kind soul stopped, and invited me in to the line, and so it began.
I marched around the Buddha Hall, with a bounce, keeping time with the great drumming of the shuso and another practitioner who were hitting both sides of the huge drum in the room. I pretended to be chanting the sutra but mostly, I was looking around at all the smiling faces in the room. See, I don't know why, but part of this ceremony involves throwing flower petals...AT each other. Really, it's what you do, like, you aim for each other. So there were these people (only a few had bowls of flower petals) throwing flower petals at you. And there were all these people, being pelted with flower petals, which just makes you smile. Meanwhile, you're walking in time with a drum, chanting Japanese syllables, and passing right next to everyone because you're kind of snaking along the edges of the tatamis. Everyone is laughing and smiling while they're chanting and walking and it's just all around silly.
After the first round of the chant, I found myself face-to-face with my good friend. She grabbed a huge handful of flowers and threw them right at me. It was awesome. But at that point, even though we had apparently finished chanting, we hadn't walked around enough to end up back in the spots we started in, so I was confused about what to do. But then someone started us chanting again, and so I started marching again. Only this time, I tried to be all present and serious and pay attention to the chant sheet. I'm pretty sure I only did this because I knew that some of the senior teachers were near me and I didn't want them to think that I was just having fun. I watched as I tried to time my walking to the rhythm of the chant and it reminded me of my sister, how earnest she is in wanting to do things right. I thought about how I often judge her for this, perceive her as needing acceptance from others, and wanting to tell her to stop it- to not worry so much about other's opinions of you. Yet here I was, doing the exact same thing myself. "Have compassion for her," I thought. "Understand that this is where it's coming from and that you do it too- that you are together in this need."
We kept chanting, for a third time, and I somehow ended up near where I had started, but not next to the same people. And then someone rang a bell and it was time to bow. At that point, I was the third of what should have been only two people on a tatami mat. Before I could even think about how this was going to work, someone grabbed me from the back and pulled me to my original spot, where there was space to bow.
Then we bowed, three times. Afterward, the person who grabbed me (who turned to be another one of my good friends) turned to face me. I bowed to her in gratitude. As we turned to face the center of the room, I watched as she gently removed flower petals from the hood of the person in front of her and I was struck by the overflowing of care and love in the room.
Then the bell rang, and everything went back to normal. We all put our hands in gassho, and bowed. I watched as the doshis turned to the left, all serious and meditative, and followed all the forms for exiting the zendo. I thought, "Oh, this was kind of like a flash mob, where everyone goes all crazy in the middle of everything and when it's over, everything goes back to normal." Since it was the seventh day of sesshin, normal was abolute silence and no eye contact. So then we all went back to normal. We all waited for the person to the side of us, took a step forward, turned, and walked until the end of the mat, turned, walked to the altar, turned, stepped down, bowed, and exited the hall to line up for soji.
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