Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Via The Tricycle Community \\ From the Academy: Ritual

 


APRIL 2025

From the Academy
Welcome to From the Academy, a monthly newsletter for Premium subscribers offering a scholarly take on topics in Buddhist thought and practice. Each issue highlights a key theme and points to further reading for exploration. This month, we look at how ritual transmits Buddhist tradition—and how it continues to evolve.

Ritual
What Makes a Ritual

Why do we bow, chant, or light incense, even when we’re not always sure what it means? Ritual marks something as meaningful or sacred—an object, a place, or a moment in time. Through symbolic gestures, it sets these things apart from daily life and brings people together in a shared purpose. 

Rituals usually follow a script—with a beginning, middle, and end—so that they can be passed down over time and performed in the same way again and again. In this way, rituals deepen a sense of connection to a tradition and to others following in that tradition.


Ritual in Buddhist Practice

In Buddhist traditions, ritual comes in many forms, from simple acts like bowing or offering food to elaborate initiations. These practices often reflect a person’s role within a community or tradition, and are frequently done to reaffirm a vow, honor a teacher, venerate an ancestor, or feed a hungry ghost.  

Rituals vary widely across Buddhist cultures, each having its own style and emphasis. Local ritual customs help shape a community’s identity and instill a sense of belonging. Even brief gestures—like placing the hands together in a sign of respect (Skt.: anjalimudra), chanting, or reciting an aspiration—can reorient the practitioner to the sacred and help settle the body and mind. These ritualized actions have long helped to frame and support practice in many Buddhist traditions.
A practitioner with a mala and hand mudra in prayer, image courtesy of BJ Graf of RetreaTours
Preserving and Adapting

Ritual has always been a crucial way of passing down Buddhist traditions, but its forms are never fixed. Over time and across cultures, they shift—usually slowly, but sometimes dramatically. These changes allow ritual to stay connected to the past while serving new needs in the present. 

Thai monks, for example, have used the traditional ordination ceremony to bless and ordain trees, highlighting the need to protect the environment. This blending of old and new is not without controversy. As with many ritual adaptations, the meanings attributed to the act can diverge, and debates over its appropriateness offer a window into the evolving life of Buddhist communities.


Modern Tensions

Today, adaptation also plays out in the tensions between traditional rituals and modern norms. For practitioners in contemporary cultures with egalitarian values, rituals can seem out of step, too hierarchical, and rooted in the past. People new to Buddhism in the West often encounter unfamiliar or culturally distant rituals as they are exposed to a new tradition. For some, this leads to hesitation or skepticism; for others, it opens the door to unexpected insights. Despite such modern tensions, ritual practices remain central for much of the Buddhist world.     

Meditation is often seen as the heart of Buddhist practice in the West—but it’s frequently framed in psychological or scientific terms, detached from any ritual roots. Viewing meditation as a type of ritual—with structure, repetition, and a dedicated space, like returning to the same cushion each morning—can subtly alter one’s relationship to the practice. The emphasis shifts from getting results to simply showing up.


Rituals in Transition

As Buddhism moves into new cultural settings, ritual forms begin to adapt. Generally, these adjustments unfold gradually, shaped by institutions, teachers, and practitioners alike. What emerges over time reflects both continuity and change. 

In the West, Buddhist rituals are still developing and may look different from what came before. However, even as new forms come into being, ritual continues to ask: What do we value enough to preserve, repeat, and pass on?
Recommended Material on Ritual
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