One of the complaints I hear from time to time is "What's with the stupid robes?" Apparently Buddhist monastic robes are a big turnoff for a lot of people. They are too foreign, or too religious, or too hierarchical -- why do some people get to wear robes, and not everyone?
I think if the critics knew about the robe traditions, they might feel differently. For example, this week's feature article is on Kathina, a Theravada practice that has been abandoned in Mahayana. Kathina is a tradition begun by the historical Buddha that allows laypeople to offer cloth to the monastic sangha for new robes.
Why is that a big deal? Well, for one, otherwise monks would have to go dumpster diving to find soiled, discarded cloth to sew into robes. Seriously. The Buddha said that robe cloth had to be "pure," meaning no one wanted it. This is all in the Pali Vinaya, to which Theravada monastics adhere. But during a four-week period every year, monks may receive donated cloth.
As Buddhism moved into China nearly two millennia ago, robes had to change to be acceptable to Chinese society. Well, that, and it gets colder in China than in most of India. But the Indian tradition of leaving one shoulder bare was unacceptable in China, because at the time no respectable Chinese person allowed bare limbs to be seen in public.
After a few decades of argument between doctrinal purists and the adapters, the adapters won. Chinese monks and nuns began to wear robes with sleeves, similar to robes worn by Taoist scholars at the time. The kashaya -- the large robe wrapped around the body and over one shoulder -- was wrapped over the sleeved robes for meditation or services, but not worn all the time.
Japanese and Korean robes are based on Chinese robes, although the Japanese added another layer -- a white or gray kimono worn under the sleeved robe, which is worn shorter in Japan than in China. Japanese priests also have added stoles and other accoutrements to the robes.
In Japanese Zen, sometimes a rakusu is worn in place of the kashaya (or "okesa" in Japanese). Lay students who have received the precepts and taken the refuges also may receive a rakusu from their teachers. The rakusu is a miniature okesa, worn over the chest something like a bib.
I have been told that in Japan, for centuries robes and rakusus have been made for monastics by a few family-owned businesses. Some of us in the U.S. are re-instituting the older tradition of sewing robes ourselves, by hand. This is not simple; just reading the rakusu instructions gave me a headache. It takes hundreds of stitches, and the refuges are chanted with every stitch:
[Insert needle] Being one with Buddha [Pull needle and thread through cloth]
[Insert needle]Being one with Dharma [Pull needle and thread through cloth]
[Insert needle] Being one with Sangha [Pull needle and thread through cloth]
The back panel of the rakusu, worn against the heart, is white silk. On this the teacher writes the robe verse --
Great Robe of Liberation
Field far beyond form and emptiness
Wrapping ourselves in Buddha's teaching
We save all beings.
The robe verse is to be chanted every time we put the rakusu on. In other words, it's a commitment.
And it's not just a commitment to yourself, or the teacher, or the institution, but to all beings, throughout space and time. Putting on a rakusu sometimes feels like putting on a yoke. (Did you know the English word yoke evolved from the Sanskrit word yoga, meaning "discipline"?) But it's a yoke of service and liberation, not of submission.
When I was making my rakusu I came across this picture of a kashaya robe drying on a clothesline in Laos. The pattern on the kashaya was the same pattern sewn into my rakusu. The "rice field" pattern, which goes back to the time of the historical Buddha, symbolizes a field of nourishment.
This moved me deeply; I felt a connection to the Laotian monk who sewed and cared for and wore that robe. I felt a connection to the generations of monastics who carried the dharma forward to the present day. I felt a connection to the generations to come after. May we not fumble.
It's really just one practice, one teaching, one dharma. We give life to it, all of us, throughout time. This is what the robe says to me.
So when people ask, "What's with the stupid robes?" it's not something I can answer in 25 words or less.
There's a lot about Buddhism that makes no rational sense, especially in the beginning. It's only after you have spent time with it, worked with it, become intimate with it, that the value of a thing reveals itself. And that's true with robes. They have something to teach, when you are ready to learn.
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