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What Is The Concept of Buddhist Prayer?
Dakini
Veteran
I realize this will sound like it's coming from a Judeo-Christian perspective, but some clarification would be appreciated. Having spent most of my life practicing and studying Buddhisim on my own, I didn't even know there was such a thing as Buddhist prayer. Since there's no divinity, to whom or what are the prayers directed? What is the point or goal of Buddhist prayer? Someone here commented that mantras are prayers. How does that work? There are also prayers that are longer texts. What are these for? Is it mainly to cultivate a sense of humility? Pardon my ignorance... :-/
I guess it's an article of faith that reciting mantras x number of times brings merit. From a logical standpoint, it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm more of a secular Buddhist than I thought.
I guess it's an article of faith that reciting mantras x number of times brings merit. From a logical standpoint, it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm more of a secular Buddhist than I thought.
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Comments
"I am a new and very inexperienced student who has recently started your Discovering the Heart of Buddhism course.
I very much enjoy reading the emails where you answer students questions and often forward them to my wife - and your recent comments on the situation in Burma has raised a question from her that I cannot answer.
In the email you mention praying for those in Burma - but if Buddhism is neither a monotheistic or multitheistic religion ( this is a major attraction of Buddhism for me), who can we be praying to?
Help!"
Lama Shenpen:
Thank you for your email. It is good to hear from you.
As for your wife's question, prayers in Buddhism are addressed to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
The Buddha didn't create the world, our karma did.
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas pervade us with their blessing (adhistana) in order to help remove all the trouble caused by our mental poisons and karmic consequences. But they cannot remove it all without our co-operation.
When we open our hearts in prayer it is as if we allow that adhistana to flow into the world and it can benefit beings in countless ways - as much as circumstances will allow. Their love and power to help is always there but we need to increase the positive circumstances in order for it to become more effective.
Our vows, our prayers, our Dharma practice, our good deeds and especially our dedication of punya (the good arising from our good deeds) helps the adhistana to flow into the world, removing immediate obstacles and eventually bringing all beings to Awakening.
"I have been wondering about Buddhism and praying, and how one would go about praying in a 'Buddhist' way. I know from reading news letters that you sometimes ask the Sangha to pray for particular things. It is something I would like to know more about."
Shenpen responds:
First, there is the idea of being connected to reality in a very direct way. If we are open, somehow reality communicates itself to us. If we open our hearts, we somehow feel connected to the Universe and to others.
When we feel inspired, our heart opens and we feel uplifted. So the heart and communication go together in a natural way and we can link into that and call it prayer. In this sense you could think of formless meditation itself as prayer.
Or you might call it faith and devotion or something like that. Maybe you would prefer to use words like feeling aligned or connected to the Awakened Heart. Whatever you call it, it's a natural and intuitive movement of our awareness that feels right somehow.
When we feel removed from this, then we feel we want to approach that way of being somehow, with reverence and yearning. There are many prayers written in the Buddhist tradition that express this sense of yearning and asking for blessing.
Many of these prayers have become liturgies that are recited daily or thousands of times until they live in the hearts and minds of those who recite them. They become part of them somehow.
Pranidhanas (monlam - wishing prayers) are made by making clear formulations of what is wished for and are said in an empowered way after having done some strong practice or good deed. One makes a statement such as 'By the punya of having done this, may such and such happen.'
So after doing your meditation practice or at the end of each day, you can think that you gather all your punya (the good you have done) together and dedicate to the Enlightenment of all beings.
Then if there are people whom you feel an especially strong need to help, you can mention them by name and dedicate punya especially for them. You can even make it quite specific such as wishing them to be well and happy, wishing them fortitude in the face of difficulties and so on.
Some people even wish for precise things such as for people to pass their exams or get the job they want and so on. Personally, I am a bit reluctant to do that because I am never sure what is best for a person in that sense. I can make more general prayers with more conviction!
So far, I have only mentioned 'praying for', but not the idea of 'praying to'. Do Buddhists pray to Awakened Beings such as Buddhas and Bodhisattvas? The answer is yes.
This may come as a surprise to many people who have heard that there is no God in Buddhism. I don't think it is as easy as all that to say there is no God in Buddhism. It all depends on what you mean by God, doesn't it?
I think when people pray to God, it's a kind of intuitive sense of there being some higher power, some force in the Universe that could respond and help somehow. I think that is what Buddhists do, too.
Of course intuitions of this kind can turn into dogmatism and superstition. But this doesn't invalidate the initial intuition. We intuit that there are beings other than ourselves when we relate to each other. We have no actual proof that everything is not just our own imagination.
So, it's important that we intuit there really are other beings, isn't it? It's good to trust that and use it as a basis for following the path to Awakening. That intuition is actually our wisdom. So is our intuition that there is help coming from the side of Awakening itself. Opening to that is called prayer.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Energy-of-Prayer-ebook/dp/B005IGBHDU/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
An individual may focus intention.
A group may focus intention.
The entire world could focus intention...
and benefit from it.
Upon what do you focus your intention?
It is your blessing!
Or perhaps conversely,
it is your curse.
For whatever energy you send forth in the cosmos
eventually returns home to you.
It is called karma.
Actually, the Christian church that "I go to" (read *1 bellow) said something similar about Christian prayer. The pastor said that prayers aren't so much a wishlist of things that you want to happen and expect to magically be given to you, but rather "focused personal intention".
*1 ((It is the church my GF has been going to since she was little, even though she is now an Agnostic-Atheist as well. Its a UCC church, so its very liberal. I swear, if I didn't know any better I'd say the pastor is an Atheist by the way he speaks about the Bible. He pretty much bluntly says to the kids in catechism that most of the stories are bullshit, don't make any sense and shouldn't be believed. I go occasionally just for the hell of it.))