Religious Meaning

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Our lives are filled with ritual: "religious" or "secular". Ritual is empty unless we imbue it with meaning. To imbue ritual with meaning means we live meaningfully. To live meaningfully means we must live mindfully.

So?

Most of us in the US just finished one of two holidays: Passover or Easter. How did we live these out? Were they meaningful? What did they mean to us, if anything?

In Judaism, there are tons of ritualistic rules regarding Pesach: no leaven for a week, no work on certain days, a Seder or two with a "haggadah" to tell us the story of Exodus. In Christianity, there are the ceremonies regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus, Easter dress, egg hunts, and so on.

Do these really mean anything to us? Or do we do them because we are supposed to do them? Have we actually made them not just a part of our lives, but a meaningful part?

Zen is not exempt from these questions. When I practice Zen, I light a stick of incense, place it to my forehead, bow, and carefully set in it the alter burner. I bow. I take my seat, I recite the Three Refuges and the Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra. I fold my hands into the cosmic mudra and practice shikantaza. Are these always meaningful? This is to say, do I always do them meaningfully?

Can a ritual be meaningful without practicing it meaningfully? A much deeper question.

I know a few people who actually resisted eating leavened bread for this past week. They come out the other side sometimes feeling very tired of matzoh. Understandable.

It is this sense of being tired of doing something that can give rise to the greatest meaning of the experience, I believe. For it is in that moment that the meaning questions surface. And for those who do not fast from leaven, the conclusion of Pesach can mean a similar set of questions.

In Zen, I committed to reciting the vows of a priest daily. Do I tire of them? Are they always meaningful? If I fail to honor them during the day, is that meaningful? Does it matter one way or the other if I sit zazen? How I sit zazen?

Are religious practices ever truly empty?

I don't think so. Regardless of our take on them, that take is the meaning we are creating for them, imbuing in them, and the result will offer us lessons for our life. What are your lessons?

Be well.