Bowing to the Ten Thousand Buddhas

The Monastery   |   James Roberts  |   June 17, 2011, 12:18 pm

It was a slow, calming but also energizing practice. We did about five hundred bows every day, which took about six hours.

Shortly after classes ended in May, the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas hosted a bowing session for twenty-three days. During the session we bowed to the ten thousand Buddhas that our community gets its name from. Just as the Buddha Hall literally contained ten thousand Buddha statues, our bowing session literally consisted of ten thousand bows. We recited each Buddha’s name, and then bowing our heads to the floor, contemplated the name for several seconds, before rising again to recite the next name. It was a slow, calming but also energizing practice. We did about five hundred bows every day, which took about six hours. Even including the morning and evening ceremonies, and the lunch offering, the schedule of this retreat was not particularly intense, but it put a lot of demand on the body and the breath during those six hours, and after just a couple of days, I noticed my body, my breath and my attitude had started to shift in some significant ways.

I generally count myself among the group of Westerners who are not necessarily that familiar with Asian forms of Buddhism, but it’s easy for me to understand bowing as a technology that transforms the mind.

The DRBY blog, Dharma Mirror, posted The Low Down on Bowing and Repentence Practice last winter, in which Reverend Heng Sure explains the practice of bowing for Westerners who might not be familiar with what it is, or what it means. I generally count myself among the group of Westerners who are not necessarily that familiar with Asian forms of Buddhism, but it’s easy for me to understand bowing as a technology that transforms the mind. CTTB, as far as I know, is the only place in the world that holds this particular session, and a lot of people travel from all parts of the world in order to attend it.

For the first few days of session, I struggled with my body — sore legs, sore back. At the same time, I really began to appreciate a deep sense of relaxation and letting go of anxiety that I have come to associate with bowing. Even with all the positive effects, often it’s still challenging for me to stick strictly to the schedule. With a good deal of effort on my part, on the fourth day I actually made every gesture of ceremony. I only accomplished this again once or twice for the rest of the session. Every other day I managed to come up with some kind of excuse to miss something or be a little late — always something having to do with my body, or my attitude. So the session was a great place to work on those things and to challenge myself.

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