Ethical rituals

Continuing with my study of Felix Adler's Founding Address, I am struck by the sparseness of what he proposes:

The exercises of our meetings are to be simple and devoid of all ceremony and formalism.

And later:

We propose to entirely exclude prayer and every form of ritual. 

No prayer.  No pledge to a flag.  No . . . but wait.  As I look at the Ethical Society of Austin, there are indeed rituals.  Simple they are indeed, but ritual they also are indeed--at least in the sense that they are repetitive, somewhat symbolic, carrying a minimal element of meaning for those present.

I've referred before to the limited rituals as I observed and participated in them.  Seeing now Adler's notion that there should be no "ceremony or formalism," I must consider them anew.

Adler had two purposes in avoiding ritual-prayer-ceremony.  First, he was seeking to avoid even the appearance of "interfering" with those to whom such things were an important part of their religious expression.  His effort was to eschew imitation or implied alternatives in order to avoid conflict with those already and firmly committed to a set of religious beliefs.  Second, he was also hoping to avoid offending those already more or less offended by religious rituals and, perhaps, supernaturalism.  His concern was, he said, reconciliation.

It is my dearest object to exalt the present movement above the strife of contending sects and parties, and at once to occupy that common ground where we may all meet, believers and unbelievers, for purposes themselves lofty and unquestioned by any.

Still, there it is.  I see ritual.  Where did it come from?  How widespread is it?  How necessary is it?  And what does it mean that the founder says "no ritual" but the practitioners have opened the door to these teensy tiny rituals?

Well, one thing I see is that Adler was an influence, but not the final word.  Ethical Culture is nearly 140 years old, and it has evolved in form and, I expect, in content as well.  It is not so much that in 140 years we added a chime, a lantern, and a burning bowl as it is that we added so little.  It's also, as I have noted before, a factor that the process is informal.  "Oops, I forgot the chime."  "Oops, the candle went out."  "Oops, my paper didn't fly up to burn."   These are rituals that have no power beyond the moment or our willingness to grant them personal meaning.  They provide structure for our function, focus for our higher purpose of considering the meaning and direction of our lives in promoting a more ethical world.  Somehow, I don't think Adler would mind.

What is Burning Bowl?

When the Burning Bowl was first announced as a program activity for the Ethical Society of Austin, I had no idea what that might entail, but I was anxious enough about this new ceremony to begin researching it.  I wanted to know more than the what and the how.  I also wanted to know why and who originated this ceremony and who practices it and when they do.  Are there variations?  How long has Burning Bowl been practiced?  In the US?  In the world?  And where in the world is it practiced?

These days, for casual information on a subject, Wikipedia is often a first step. Imagine my surprise when I found that Wikipedia does not give the term "burning bowl" alone or paired with "ceremony" or "ritual" a separate entry.  Wikipedia did allow me the option to have the page created, but I did not pursue it.

The second step, a Google search, did, however, provide an abundance of images, videos, and webpages to give a fair indication of how widespread and diverse the practice of burning away <something negative> might be.   I sampled only a few of the search results.

One of the more interesting results was a link to the song "Burning Bowl," sung by She Keeps Bees.  It seems that Burning Bowls are fairly common in Unity and some independent Christian churches as well as some Eastern-based healing traditions.   There may be other practitioners that I skipped over in my haste.  The Burning Bowl might also be practiced by individuals in a personal ceremony.  It is common to practice the ceremony at the end or the beginning of the year, but some practice it during a full moon and others at any important life or personal transition (burning away the old to make room for the new).  All one needs to make the ceremony happen are:

• a personal need to let go of something negative;
• a bowl or some fire-resistant surface;
• a source of fire;
• paper (flash paper optional);
• writing implement;
• community (optional);
• transitional occasion (end/beginning of time period, life phase, etc.).

I used a number of keyword searches and combinations to try to find out more about this practice.  There are some who think it originated in Hindu traditions, but I could find no quick resource on the web to confirm this.

A few days ago, I talked about the ESOA Burning Bowl ceremony and what it meant to me with a friend, who happens to be an active Methodist.  She told me that her church has a similar practice around Easter when church members can write down a problem or concern, pin it to a cross provided on the altar, and so have that problem or concern taken away, presumably by the Christ.  I am familiar with the belief that one can pray and have one's burdens taken away, but I had not previously heard of this sort of paper/cross activity before.

Are there other (or similar) practices being used in (other) sacred and secular contexts that include this process of writing down a <negative idea/feeling/problem>, then destroying or otherwise "letting go" of the written problem so that the individual can, through the physical act, symbolize the desired emotional/physical/social release/relief?  An old idea with new forms?  An Eastern idea that has moved to the West?  When?  How?  And how widespread has it become?

Just curious.