Hi Everyone,

A few days ago I am so glad I find out Tiny Buddha and I had some amazing insights after resolving my past. I am so grateful of this website and here I would like to contribute a personal transformation experience about the act of bowing.

I was born and raised in a Buddhist family. My mother used to taught me how to practise meditation, but I always fail to concentrate and couldn’t enjoy it. I felt frustrated and thought I could never experience the benefits of it. I thought maybe only the gifted ones would be able to approach that state of mind and I give up practising.

I remember I used to have a Buddhist Thai friend who told me that praying or bowing shouldn’t be a practise of asking for our desires. In fact, we should we should be just focus on the act itself.

The same theory I experienced when I was in France, during a retreat experience in Plum Village. They taught me the same theory but I still couldn’t fully utilise it on myself.

I felt I know the theories, and I know how it works and the logic behind it, but how come I still couldn’t reach peace?

Then recently I felt really depressed as I feel like I want to let go of my own self and start anew. I found Tinybuddha and go through all the simple theories of wisdom on this website and tried to resolve my own difficulties.

Then the next morning when I woke up I suddenly have the urge to meditate. And I realised I find peace finally. Without even trying — and that is very important, don’t try to do it for the sake of doing it — I felt this bliss. So wonderful that I couldn’t hold to myself but I think that I should share it, as I know a lot of people might experience the same difficulties of wanting to find peace but couldn’t experience it during meditating.

Meditation shouldn’t be a state of focus or concentrating. We heard too many teachings telling us to concentrate and try to relax but I realised instead of using the word concentrate, which the word associate with the feeling of stress and putting effort, I would prefer to use the words “Be aware” or what some called “mindfulness”.

Because we as human beings still attached to this physical body. Our knowledge can tell us to be at certain state of emotions but we need our bodies to feel it in order to believe it.
And to be “at peace with oneself” could be a very challenging task for some because the body doesn’t learn it until it experienced it. It’s the same as learning swimming or learning a new language. The trick is the “experiencing”, not the “knowing”. Which is the opposite of how our society so used to teach us.

I was actually just sitting on my sofa, relaxed and waiting for my drink to be ready, when suddenly this comes to me. Since I had spent the previous night process through my mind what I need to do today and suddenly all of the information became some kind of rhythm I could be fit in my every action. It’s like there’s an observer in my mind telling me that my habitual actions are actually just a reflection of what needs to be done. Then I bow to Buddha, as my forehead touch the ground (or Earth), I suddenly realised why they have this tradition of bowing: it’s an essence and a physical representation of letting go and reborn.

In traditional Chinese culture, bowing is an important element that people do to show their respect. And as times passes, it become a ritual and people seldom question the meaning and reason behind it.

Today when I bow to Buddha, I wasn’t actually bowing to the any deity. In theory, Buddha is actually just a representation of virtue and a reflection of my own self.

I am bowing because I want to tell myself to accept my past and be succumbed to it. The moment my forehead touched the ground I can feel a relief of negative energy pass to the Earth. I want to let go my past and pride and everything, and because I am able to let go, I bow, and that is a complete action of succumb and be at the present moment. I feel totally relaxed as I accept and succumb my past and be at present, now I can finally move on.

Rising up from the bow feels like taking the first steps as an infant. I rise respectively and I could feel the weight of my body. I feel weak at first but after letting go (by touching the ground) my mind is clear and I can feel how heavy this physical body, which I was so used to carry, actually is. My spirit is light and now I know since I have the strength to carry this body, I am capable to be responsible and I have the strength of loving and taking care of many things in my life.

This experience is very complex but all in one simple bowing act.
And I feel enlightened. Through the act of “experiencing the bow” I finally understand why were they keep this tradition all those decades.

In modern society, it’s not common to do the act of bowing and we lost this tradition, but I can still see the “act of bowing” plays in every culture and religion in various forms. (Although some Christians might not agree they have the “act of bowing” in their religion, the “act of confession” still works as a similar, though not complete exercise of it.) After all, the essence of the “act of bowing” is letting go completely, and rises from where you fall— it is an act of death and reborn, a cleansing of our souls that we all seek for.