Ritual - discomfort and seeking to understand

[Lauren]

Hello All,

I wanted to respectfully ask a few questions. I truly hope I don't sound disrespectful and I want to be clear that this is coming from a place of good faith - I am honestly seeking to understand this better and feel that as a beginner I just may not "get it" yet.

A little context, I grew up in a Roman Catholic household and was forced to complete confirmation and attend church weekly until I left my childhood home. I very intentionally left the Christian faith many years ago for reasons that aren't really relevant here. So I think this is why I am perhaps more concerned than usual with...adopting new trappings without understanding them.

So...there's something I really like about the zen "aesthetic" and things like robes, incense, tatami mats, zafus, bells. It's all very nice. The ritual around zazen is genuinely nice. But what is "nice" or what I like isn't the same thing as what is needed or required.

If I am understanding the teaching of zen and zazen at any sort of rudimentary level, it seems to me like the highly structured ritual I am seeing seems...counter to the teachings. If we're learning to let go, if we're learning that all is needed is to just sit and let our cravings and preconceived concepts fall away, then it makes me nervous that if I go to a zendo (relatively near) my home, that I need to hold my hands in a certain way when walking, and bow various ways before I start, and show reverence towards a statue, etc etc etc. Why is incense being burned? Why must I always turn clockwise? Why must I enter and exit the room a certain way? Why must I chant? Why, if I continue down this path, must I receive a new name?

Honestly, it has me stressing so much that I'll make a faux pas or (literally or figuratively) step on someone's toes or embarrass myself (what self?!) that I don't know if I'll be able to work up the courage to go.

I sat in on a Zoom introductory session for a (relatively) nearby temple yesterday and asked a version of this question and they surprisingly didn't have a very rich answer. There was a little comment about how it's history, and the rituals are just forms, but that sort of reminds me of Platonic forms, which I now know don't really exist. And creating forms, creating a sort of boundary around "special sitting time," seems like the opposite of what I should be doing when I am trying to sit zazen or learn zen, when I am learning to be mindful always and let go of "self." And even with historical purpose - why were they doing this back then? Kicking the can down into history doesn't really resolve the question.

There was also a response from a man there, when I asked this, along the lines of, "I used to be an atheist too, before I started" which struck me as a rather odd response because my question isn't really about religion at all - religion isn't ritual and ritual isn't inherently a religion. We all have rituals, a daily coffee in a way can be a ritual - and it seems to me you could be a strong atheist or a devout member of a faith and still sit zazen in the same zendo. Perhaps. So I wondered if maybe that gentleman maybe didn't understand my question, or why I was asking, or maybe he doesn't understand why he's doing what he's doing. I don't know. But for him to say "I used to be" made me wonder what he thinks he is now worshipping, when from my understanding within Zen Buddhism specifically, Buddha is not a deity, and no comment on the divine is really made (or needs to be made, as the question is irrelevant) at all.

In one sense, I think that it might be nice, if I am able to establish a practice, to (conduct? complete? not sure the verb) jukai in a year or two. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to sew and wear a rakusu, and balance it on my head and kiss it before zazen, if I don't truly understand why I am doing those things.

I hope that this doesn't sound like I am criticizing the use of ritual - rather, I realize I am a beginner and likely don't have a full or accurate view. I am seeking to better understand its purpose and use to make sure I am understanding things in at least some correct rudimentary way. I don't understand why the ritualized nature of zen at a zendo is needed, and why it is encouraged, when to my eyes it seems like as we understand better and better, form should rather fall away.

Can anyone help me understand or offer some resources I can explore?

Thank you all very much for your insight.

Warmly,

Lauren