I gave a version of this talk in March 2024 at Still Mind Zendo in New York.

For this short talk, I want to examine something that was a barrier for me when I first came to Zen. As our teachers say, every barrier is a gate.

This gate came in the form of a question: Why do we bow?

A few weeks ago, we had a discussion circle to say goodbye to our old home on 17th street. Our dharma brother Brian Thompson mentioned how touched he was when he first came through the door at Still Mind Zendo and someone greeted him with a bow. He said he felt welcome, at home. I suspect many of us shared a similar experience.

I know what he meant. It seemed so friendly. But bowing did not come natural to me. It took me a long time to get used to all the bowing in the zendo.

Why did I have a problem with bowing?

It is a common greeting in Asia and all sects of Buddhism. Muslims bow in prayer toward Mecca five times a day. We are used to performers bowing for applause, and there is some head bowing and kneeling in the Christian and Jewish faith.

But in day-to-day American life, bowing as a greeting feels alien. We do everything else – we shake hands, we high-five, we do fist bumps, we hug, we kiss cheeks. I’ve even had people give me a little wave. During the pandemic, when handshaking seemed unwise, people started touching elbows. But they didn’t pick up bowing.

Our cultural discomfort with bowing seems to go back to the American Revolution. In Europe, people bow to royalty. Royalty does not bow back. It is a form of submission. President Biden’s mother famously told him to never kiss the pope’s ring or bow down to the British queen. Miss Manners gives the same advice. She says Americans should shake hands, as equals.

I was googling around and came across a post by a libertarian, David Boaz, who summed up this sentiment. I quote: “Americans are citizens, not subjects. We don’t bow or curtsy to any fellow Americans, much less to foreign monarchs …. That expectation went out in 1776.”

So much conceptual baggage around a simple gesture! I think this is why bowing made me uncomfortable at first, a barrier, something I had to overcome.

And we sure do bow a lot in the zendo. Tonight, you have already put your hands in gassho and bowed many times.

If you were following our practice, you bowed to the jisha at the door. When you entered the zendo, you bowed to the Buddha on the altar, then to your mat, then to the buddha sitting across the way. We all bowed with the teacher after the incense was placed on the altar.

We bowed after chanting the Gatha of Repentance. When the bell ended the first period of zazen, we bowed again. We bowed several times in kinhin – at the beginning, when it was time for fast kinhin, when we returned to our seats.

You returned my bow at the start of this talk. You will return my bow when it ends. We will bow again when the bell ends the sitting, and again during the closing chants. We’ll have closing bows to the Buddha and a final bow when the kinhin leader claps us out. On a given night, we might 15 to 20 times or more.

What’s with all the bowing?

In preparing this talk, I turned to guidelines written by Maezumi Roshi, who founded the Los Angeles Zen Center and our White Plum lineage. He wrote a chapter on gassho and bowing in a 2002 book called “On Zen Practice: Body, Breath and Mind” noting that newcomers to zen centers often have questions about bows.

His answer was to tell the story of what happened when the Buddha, after his enlightenment, went to the forest to see five of his former companions. They thought he had gone down a wrong path when he gave up extreme fasting and other punishing ascetic practices. The yogis were so struck by his transformation, his serenity and radiance, that they spontaneously put their palms together in gassho and made great bows.

Here is Maezumi’s commentary: “When the Buddha realized his enlightened nature, the first thing he said was, ‘wonder of wonders! All sentient beings have this same nature!’ And thus, in bowing to the Buddha, the five yogis were bowing to themselves and to all beings. They were expressing their recognition of the great unity that their former companion had directly and profoundly experienced.”

This will sound familiar to those of you who were at the beautiful jukai ceremony last fall for Juan and Gabe. You may remember what we chanted in the kinhin line: “Buddha recognizes Buddha and Buddha bows to Buddha.” There was a lot of bowing that night. Gabe and Juan were doing full prostrations, to the Buddha on the altar, to their preceptor Sensei Jean, to their friends and family. I remember at my own jukai. I was out of breath by the end and my face was red. So much bowing.

Somewhere along the way, bowing became a habit. I was no longer self-conscious about it. If someone bows to me in the zendo, I return the bow without thinking about it. There is no thought before the action. Sometimes, when the situation feels appropriate, I even bow out outside the zendo, in the office or to strangers in stores.

I’ve had to make sure it does not become too habitual. It is worth checking in from time to time with how you bow. Bruce has reminded me a couple of times about giving proper attention to the bows and other forms.

I quote again from Maezumi’s instructions: “In bowing we should move neither hastily nor with exaggerated slowness, but simply maintain a reverent and humble attitude. When we bow fast, the bow is then too casual; perhaps we are even hurrying to get it over and done with. It conveys a lack of respect. On the other hand, if our bow is too slow, then it becomes a rather pompous display. We may have gotten too attached to the feeling of bowing or our own (real or imagined) gracefulness of movement. We have lost the humble attitude that a true bow requires.”

This still doesn’t answer my question. Why do we bow? What is the meaning of bowing? Perhaps these are the wrong questions. They are attempts to attach a concept to the gesture. Bowing has importance and practical significance, but it does not have meaning. It is certainly not a form of submission, as when Europeans bow to royalty. We are not placing the other above ourselves, and in receiving bows we are not putting ourselves above the other. At the fundamental level, none of us have rank. The precepts tell us we should not put ourselves above others, or below them. We are the same. Not two. Two bows meeting is a recognition of this.

Bowing has a practical aspect for zazen, as well. A couple of months ago, I helped Dharma Holder Matthias with an Introduction to Zen class, and he told the newcomers that bowing and all the other forms are a way of removing choice, which removes the need to think. Should I be standing here or there? What do I do with my hands? Where should I be looking?

If you follow the forms, your mind doesn’t have to make any of those decisions. The habit of the bow is a physical message to your body. You are telling your body it is time to pause, to put yourself in the moment. You’re in the zendo now. Settle down.

You come into the zendo in such a way, you bow, you stand in gassho. No need for internal debate. It settles you. Bowing is a habit that uses the physical body to make a mental framework that allows you to drop more quickly into zazen. And that is the whole point.

Look at all the forms and you see their purpose. Everything in Zen is just so. The incense is lit in such a way. The mats are placed at such a distance. You bow shallowly or deeply, once or three times, depending. You sit in a certain way. You hold your hands in a certain mudra. In Kinhin you walk a certain way. When the bell rings at the end of the sitting, you bow, and your body knows the sitting is over. The forms make the structure. Bowing is one of the forms.

Our minds can use language to ascribe meaning to form, as Maezumi did with his story about the Buddha and the bowing yogis, but the forms themselves are empty. What bowing means is a construct of our minds, not part of the bow itself. The bow is empty. The Buddha on the altar or across the way is empty. The Buddha who sits on your mat is empty.

It should be no surprise that so many koans about awakening involve bows and bowing. It is also why the great master Dogen said, "As long as there is true bowing, the Buddha way will not deteriorate."

And now it is time to sit again.

(DEEP BOW)