Lying in my bed in this hill town two hours southeast of Kathmandu, I wake each morning to ritual. Around 5:30 a.m., birdsong rises from the nearby forest. An hour later comes bell ringing and the long, plaintive note of a conch shell. Incense drifts, faintly, through my window from the small Hindu temple where Shiva, the guesthouse chef and the temple’s namesake, performs his daily prayers. Hindu and Buddhist practitioners have performed similar rites for hundreds of years in this polytheistic Himalayan nation.

Yet in the spiritual realm, as in law, performance is often mistaken for truth—for insight, for wisdom.

In the legal profession, performance is pervasive in and outside courtrooms. We see it in the ritualized dumping of burdensome discovery, grandstanding during mediations, deposition taking aimed at impressing clients, choreographed courtroom flourishes elevating style over substance. In temples, it can look like mantra recitation without understanding, incense burning, candle lighting, prayer-wheel turning and other gestures that feel “spiritual” but often lack a groundedness in meaning or purpose.

These forms are not inherently wrong; they can serve as containers for meaning. For example, as one monk once told me, chanting can help practitioners “get in the mood” for meditation and deeper work. But when form becomes the point, substance is lost, and truth is sacrificed. As a lawyer and long-term Buddhist practitioner living in Nepal, I’ve come to understand that truth-seeking requires stripping away unnecessary display and trusting subtler practices: investigation, reflection, letting go and decentering the ego.

Performance in legal practice

Legal advocacy has always had a performative side. Courtrooms reward signals: the suit, posture, cadence and practiced command of exhibits and procedure.

The risk is that performance replaces substance—for truth-seeking, for insight, for wisdom. When arguments are weak, lawyers may lean on charged emotional language, melodramatic storytelling or flashy visuals. As the musical Chicago puts it: “Give ’em the old razzle dazzle. … How can they hear the truth above the roar? … When you’re in trouble, go into your dance.”

Outside the courtroom, lawyers can rely on form—procedural maneuvers—to avoid engaging the moral heart of a case. In my employment law practice, I’ve seen lawyers bury opponents in an ocean of interrogatories, take marginally relevant depositions, and file trivial motions seemingly to skirt dealing with the more morally complex issues in the case.

Habits are often inherited, learned from mentors and normalized by organizational culture. Over time, we develop attachments to these practices, as they provide a sense of security, however illusory. Because they look like “what competent lawyers do,” we cling to these habits even when they distort judgment and truth-seeking.

Unfortunately, in adversarial systems, the temptation to “win” through spectacle (with its false promises of success), rather than clarity, is ever present.

Ritual in Buddhist practice

Buddhism has rituals, too. At Boudhanath, the great whitewashed stupa above the Kathmandu Valley, pilgrims spin prayer wheels, light butter lamps, chant and circumambulate the stupa (kora) with prayer beads. These rituals are deeply connected to Buddhist practice and when performed mindfully, can support awakening.

Years ago, in Thamel, Kathmandu’s tourist center, the mantra “Om mani padme hum” could be heard and seen everywhere—from shopkeepers’ speakers to streets bedecked in prayer flags bearing the sacred inscription. In a traditional reading “om” signifies the initiation of cosmic action, “mani” (jewel) evokes altruistic intention, “padme” (lotus) points to wisdom arising from ignorance and “hum” unifies them.

Yet many recited this ancient mantra without knowing its meaning or what mind states it was meant to cultivate. Certainly, ritual can signal devotion and belonging. But without awareness and understanding, they do little to cultivate wisdom or compassion.

As in law, ritual can become rote and performative—piety performed without the inner work of investigation or reflection.

The parallel: Law and Dharma

At their best, both law and Dharma aim at truth. Both use structures—rules of evidence, procedural safeguards, meditation methods and ethical precepts to guide practitioners toward clarity and outcomes that support individual and community well-being. But structure can become performance and obscure the goal.

In law, the danger is that performance becomes a cynical strategy to manipulate perception, rather than illuminate fact and pursue truth. Lawyers may press witnesses into rehearsed scripts or heightened emotion, creating the appearance of truth while distorting it. Over time, that erodes trust in the profession and the process.

In Buddhism, the danger is clinging to rites as ends in themselves. The Buddha warned against this: In the “Kalama Sutta,” he urges seekers to test teachings through experience and reason, rather than tradition or authority. The long-standing practice of Tibetan monastic debate embodies the same spirit—wrestling with Buddhist theories until they become lived understanding. Not clinging to form is not a rejection of form. It is a reminder that form should be examined and serve truth, not replace it.

The antidote, in both realms, is the same: letting go of clinging to form and cultivating wise action grounded in investigation, insight and courage.

Wise action

For the lawyer, investigation includes competent legal research, careful listening and deprioritizing ego. Done mindfully, a more fulsome clarity can emerge—one that illuminates the legal, human and ethical implications at stake. From that groundedness, we can begin to let go of our craving and attachment to theatrical scaffolding and trust that we already have what we need to pursue justice with wisdom and courage.

For the Buddhist, investigation is testing the Dharma—through meditation, reflection and mindfulness—allowing true insight to arise. Such an inquiry builds the courage to let go of clinging to rituals and act with greater awareness, intention and wisdom.

Practical implications for legal practice

Rejecting performance in favor of authenticity doesn’t mean rejecting formality. It means:

  • Prioritizing clarity over theatrics in writing and argument.
  • Engaging directly with the moral dimensions of a case, rather than hiding behind procedure.
  • Listening deeply for the human reality beneath legal positions.
  • Cultivating ethical self-awareness, so advocacy serves justice, not ego.

The courage to be unadorned

In legal and spiritual practice, stripping away performance can leave us feeling vulnerable. Without ritual or theatrics, our reasoning, ethics and humanity are exposed. But in that unadorned space, insight, compassion and truth have their best chance to emerge.

For lawyers, it means trusting that yoking head and heart-centered lawyering can persuade better than gratuitous flourish. For spiritual practitioners, it means trusting insight and compassion can arise without elaborate ceremony. In both, we let go of what impresses to hold to what’s real.

Law, like Dharma, is a clarity-seeking path. When we strip away performance, we return to the work of seeing things as they are—and acting accordingly. That is where truth—and justice—live.

Phillis Morgan helps law firms and organizations optimize leadership performance and support employee well-being. Her practical, mindfulness-based programs seek to shift thinking, so that greater insight, wisdom and resilience can be developed, integrated and sustained over time.

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