Or becomes so thoughtlessly and slavishly adhered to that no one can remember WHY they are even doing it or if it necessary to still do so. Have you heard the story of the temple cat? .
There was once a community of Tibetan monks whose senior sadhu owned a pet cat. The cat followed him everywhere but became a distraction when they were meditating, as they often did, at certain hours of the day. The sadhu didn't want to see the cat distressed and neither did the monks, so they decided that it could be tethered to a post during prayer and meditation hours, right next to the senior sadhu. The cat was happy to sleep through their meditations but follow the senior sadhu throughout the rest of the day. Sadly one day the senior sadhu died. The cat however attached itself to another of the monks, who happened also to be duly elected senior sadhu. It was decided that the cat could remain in it's usual position during prayers. Eventually, one by one the monks, who were already quite elderly, each also died, and young novices replaced them one by one. This went on until one day the cat also died. The novices then had a problem. They had always meditated and prayed with a cat tied to a pillar and the senior sadhu no longer had a cat. None could remember a time when prayer and meditation hours were not accompanied by a cat and the cat obviously chose who the senior sadhu was to be. It was therefore decided that a cat should be bought from someone in the local village, to replace the one that had died, so that it could choose the next senior sadhu when the current one died, so that they could continue to meet together for the hours of prayer and meditation and the orderly routine of the monastry could continue uninterruped. How many temple cats are regularly being reinstalled in the RC and Anglican churches? .