Being there

Yesterday was a festival day at the Priory. It was the Parinirvana festival, commemorating the Buddhas death. I attended the festival ceremony but just for a change didn't take an active part in it. It's quite a complicated ceremony with lots of candles being snuffed out and lights being turned off then them all being lit again, which requires a lot of coordination between various people in order to get the timing just right. These things are always fraught with difficulty. Anyone playing an active part in the ceremony can easily get the heebie jeebies. What if I do the wrong thing at the wrong time and spoil the whole thing? It really is quite unsettling. I've been through this kind of thing many times myself and made a not quite conscious effort to try and conquer my fear. In fact what happened was I made many, many mistakes in various festivals and ceremonies and gradually realised that it didn't all fall apart and it would somehow be OK anyway.

What really helps in these situations though is to simply key into something deeper. In other words, just be there. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to make a mistake. I still do this after a few years of taking part in ceremonies. It just means that when it does go wrong I just note what I did and carry on to the next bit instead of tripping myself up at that point and being completely off balance for the rest of the ceremony. When it works right (and it doesn't always) the whole thing just seems to flow. The more complicated ceremonies rarely go exactly to plan. Even if you discount thefact that this is a room full of human beings with human failings, inanimate objects do often take on a life of their own to throw extra confusion into the mix.

I suppose what I am saying is that it is possible to go through these ceremonies with a meditative mind. When we do so, these little problems are just dealt with when they arise without us buying into the whole confusion. Each ceremony has its particular significance, some of which rings true with me and some of which is probably completely lost on me but as well as this, there is something quite enjoyable about the whole thing when I manage to penetrate the fears that surround this kind of public performance. I don't know if this really counts as part of the devotional aspect that Rev. Mugo spoke about in her blog. I suspect this is something a little different but I think it has value all the same.