Form is Content, Content is Form: Between Rituals and Sacraments

Abstract

for martin buber religious rituals are the frozen enactments of what in its origin was a moment of spiritual inception. we cannot recover the moment by reenacting a ritual, we can only seek that moment by an act of immediate and renewed relationship with a being. the ritual is a frozen form, but what we need is the fresh encounter. take the case of the buddha: the buddha held a little lotus flower in his hand and one poet saw and smiled.