Wikizen

"When first visiting Zen temples and centers, people who are familiar with iconoclastic stories of medieval Zen master encounters are sometimes surprised by the conservative and ritualistic nature of the practice. For example, when Philip Kapleau first encountered Soen Nakagawa, a Japanese priest, at his temple, Kapleau was disturbed at the sight of Nakagawa bowing to a statue of an earlier Zen master. Kapleau exclaimed, "The old Chinese masters burned or spit on Buddha statues! Why do you bow down before them?", to which Nakagawa replied,
"If you want to spit, you spit. I prefer to bow."

from the wiki-dharma