The first part, as to when we bow, are we doing it towards the original Buddha, or to the Buddha nature that is inherent within ourselves, Rosemary and I stress that we're doing it towards the original Buddha. If you think you have an inherent Buddha nature within yourself, that's a view and an opinion. Maybe you don't. What we want to develop, as to the thoughts generating when we're bowing and showing respect to the Buddha statue, is who are we thanking and showing our respect toward. We're not thanking our inherent Buddha nature (even if it is there), we are thanking the person who started all of this, we are thanking the person who taught so tirelessly, so willingly, so freely, so we have the teaching now. We emphasize reflecting on the original teacher, he is the person we want to thank and respect. The Dhamma is the teachings, even though the Buddha's dead, the Dhamma is alive today, we still have that, we're thankful and respectful towards the Dhamma.
The third part, the Sangha, are we bowing towards only enlightened people or others. As to its proper form, the bowing we do towards the statue is towards the enlightened ones, anyone who's fully or partly enlightened. We want to feel that those people are the most important people, those people are very worthy, they're the highest group of people to be considered worthy, the most worthy. So that is who we really want to thank when we are doing the Triple Gem bowing. Without them, the teachings would have died long ago because they were the true example of the teaching, they were the ones who manifested what was truly the end result of the practice. Then when they were able to pass it on, it was more pure.
If we think that there were, of course, millions of other people who helped the teachings come down, that's something also that we would want to be thankful for. We also do wish to be thankful to our specific teachers, those who have helped us, that's very important too, but as to how we understand the bowing itself, it is for those that are full or partly enlightened.