Rei / Etiquette (1)

Etiquette, Conduct, Behavior in the Dojo

What does “good behavior” mean in the dojo context? All of these things about dojo behavior are cultural, so there is required some conscious effort to learn a culture that’s not your own. Even modern Japanese people these days may have less of an image of what dojo behavior is compared to long ago. The conscious effort is not going to come by some big fat manual. Occasionally it’s the instructor talking. But mostly it’s by being around it, observing, being attentive. What are the more experienced people doing? Understanding, "It has to do something with me!" and not passively waiting to be instructed or corrected.

One big piece of dojo behavior is ‘etiquette’, like how to bow, how to sit. This is important in zazen, seated meditation practice, not just dojos. Even if you’ve never done it, you may have this image that you sit there, quiet and still, and there’s a teacher or monk walking around with a bamboo stick. And if you fidget or slouch or make noise, “whack!”, the teacher hits you. If you have no grasp of the context, then you’ll be surprised and make no sense of why he’s hitting you. And there’s no explanation of why he hit you. So part of the context is, looking at yourself. “What did I do? I must have fidgeted or slouched or something.” You look inward, not outward at the teacher. If you look outward at the teacher, it’s like, “Tell me what I did wrong. You explain to me what I need to do.” What a different relationship that is, with your teacher! Who does the work? Who figures out what needs to be corrected or worked on? Should the student take it easy and it’s the teacher’s job to figure out and indicate what needs to be done? Or does the student develop their sense of looking at themselves and figuring out what to do? Same with ‘shodo’, traditional calligraphy. You finish writing something, present it to your teacher, and your teacher just circles a part to indicate, “That’s no good”. The student doesn’t get to say to the teacher, tell me what’s wrong. It’s the student’s responsibility to become able to see. And also to know what the teacher sees and thinks. So the point is, in this cultural context, we have particular roles and each role has certain work to do. If it’s not your culture, then you have to consciously make the effort to remember the context: what is my role? what work am I expected to do?

Think of sitting ‘zazen’ again. There’s a proper and correct way to sit. Do you think you can slouch or sit any random way and cultivate concentration or a quiet mind? There’s the outer shape or form, which might be the correct way to sit, and there’s the inner, which might be a quiet mind. The teacher can see both. The student presumes the teacher can see and relies on the guidance. Maybe the teacher sees a beginner student and the outer form is no good and “whack!”, the feedback is given, and the student reflects on what needs to be fixed. But for a more advanced student, maybe the outer form looks okay - they’re sitting more or less correctly - but the teacher can perceive when the student’s mind wanders or wavers, and whack!” - that advanced student looks at themselves differently than the beginner student about what to correct; but the presumption or faith that the teacher can see and guide is still there.

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And so we come to this point that the outer shape of something might not necessarily match the inner. You can say “thank you” but not mean it. You can bow to someone but not mean it. But we can first make the outer form correct. The inner essence catches up to it. And whether the inner matches the outer is the responsibility, the work of the individual student - the teacher can’t make you mean it. But the minimum requirement is the outward behavior, isn’t it. We teacher our kids to say “thank you” and “please”, right? And hope or teach separately about meaning it.