ritual

2006/5/21 9:30-11:00am, zen buddhist temple, W:

Chanting, meditating, singing, praying, standing-sitting-moving in coordinate fashion. It is all a way to coordinate desires, to enhance a group desire. Ritual. Not the blank and blind following of a meaningless tradition, but the inhabitation of a circular group event of which I am a part. I become part of the group. I lose myself. We are. And yet, desire gets in the way, or that seems to be much of what I read in books on zen. Is desire necessary for ritual? What about Artaud/Deleuze’s BWO – isn’t that a desire of intensity, not of lack? Am I willing to give up desire, even the kind based on lack? Could I even if I was?