Kobun: "It is a very powerful action, destroying continuous birth of the ego. Ego is nonsense. Also, if it is your own you have to suffer with it. So whether the ego arises or not go with it and don't just destroy it. Take all energy within and about with you. It is not a thinking process. It is an action. You recreate yourself. Most of the time we give freely to the life of egos . . . . One bow to somebody is a way to unite two as one. There is no discussion about it.
"Joined hands is a kind of sword (thrust) into others. If two bow together it is like two swords merge into each other. I don't know which is cutting which. If it is arrow two arrows merge into each other. (When we) get up two appear and since the body has a front, back, left and right side we bend like this throwing our body on the floor. Imagine if we have a completely symmetrical body; to bow only one way is to explode or to (implode) inside out.
"One bow has every sensation, excitement, regret, joy, appreciation, heat, cold--everything--that which we are actually. It has the same nature as za-zen so it is not a group ritual to do. Do it by yourself and if you have somebody you care for who is far away do it toward that person. If you have a beloved follower to transmit something to or someone with whom you are mutually realizing something bowing is an excellent gesture. If you have a great problem with the whole world situation because your (actual) perspective is contrary to your expectations to bow to the world is another way to get into it. Instead of running around and biting a bit of each part you swallow the whole problem as your problem. Because . . . it is all with you. We were born in the beginning like that. To be born on this earth is to have the whole thing. From the beginning there are these precise distinctions between things but the whole thing is yourself. That is how it stated. When we become so deeply involved in precise discrimination between things for such a long time we forget our original self. We don't lose that original nature but we forget. So, to sit is to recover that original nature fully and to stay with it for awhile. And to get up is to gain excellent relationships with other selves, many dilemmas, people, plants, birds, jobs, all kinds. Suzuki-roshi talks about this original self as the "Big Mind" in which everything exists without exception."