"Since the third century CE to this day, bowing to the Buddha is the most common
practice for Asian Buddhists. However, among Westerners, bowing practice, as
compared with meditation, is not as well-known. Last summer, I had an
opportunity to speak with Reverend Heng Sure, the director of the Berkeley
Buddhist Monastery, and asked for more information about Buddhist bowing and
repentance. In the late 1970s, Reverend Sure and a fellow monk did a three-year
bowing pilgrimage for world peace along the coast of California. Their journey
began in Pasadena and ended three years and 800 miles later at the City of Ten
Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah. And most astonishingly, their knees had already
endured over a million bows..."
Rev. Heng Sure shares more on the alchemy of bowing in this interview.
