Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Prayer. A load of crap or creme?
buddhafoot
Veteran
Since deciding to follow the teachings of Buddha, I have come, recently, to question prayer.
Prayer seems, to me, typically Christian - yet I'm sure many, many other cultures have prayer incorporated into their belief/religious systems.
What does Buddha teach of prayer? Did he teach prayer? Where would this prayer be going? If not to a deity, does it go to the intended receiver?
I still don't know what to do with this prayer-thing - but when people are in difficult straights and you feel compassion towards them - what does one do?
If there is no one to pray to - and life contains suffering that is, sometimes, outside of our scope - how and why and to whom should one pray?
-bf
Prayer seems, to me, typically Christian - yet I'm sure many, many other cultures have prayer incorporated into their belief/religious systems.
What does Buddha teach of prayer? Did he teach prayer? Where would this prayer be going? If not to a deity, does it go to the intended receiver?
I still don't know what to do with this prayer-thing - but when people are in difficult straights and you feel compassion towards them - what does one do?
If there is no one to pray to - and life contains suffering that is, sometimes, outside of our scope - how and why and to whom should one pray?
-bf
0
Comments
I've just posted on the Sedona fire thread, with a subtext of this topic!
-bf
Two of my friends, who are christian, are always saying regarding prayer that "prayer doesn't change god, prayer changes me". (I can't remember where that's originally from though.)
Prayer seems like a form of meditation.
Anything Eastern usually gives them the willies and sends them off on a "speaking in tongues" tirade...
-bf
In the Christian traditions there is a wide variety of prayer, of which the 'prayer of intercession' (i.e asking for things) is only one, and not the most important. The idea of intercessory prayer, along with propiatory offerings, dates far back before Christianity. It presupposes a deity who can (and will) change something or make something happen because we have asked for it. Of course, any of us who have numbed our bums listening to sermons will have come across the traditional sermon on "Prayer is Always Answered - but the answer is sometimes 'No'." I have always found this supremely unconvincing.
To say truly, I have no idea if intercession actually changes anything. Quasi-scientific 'experiments' remain deeply unconvincing. Why, then, do I still bring friends, family and those who request it to mind, speaking their names or descriptions to the empty air? And do it every day? In truth, I am impressed by the fact that the vast majority of humanity believed that this was useful. My generation may no longer be sure but we appear to have proved that no action occurs without a reaction, that all phenomena are inter-connected. At a sub-atomic level, where the electro-magnetic habits of time and space no longer apply, we have no idea what effect movements of the mind may have.
In addition, along the lines of being "changed by prayer", reflecting on the goodwill that we wish to others whom we know are in need helps to dispose the mind towards compassion and is part of the process of purifying the intention.
In addition to praying for things, there is also a batch of techniques for praying about things. This is often called "discursive meditation" and St Ignatius Loyola wrote The Spiritual Exercises to describe one method. Imagery and visualisation are part of these techniques. "Contemplation" or the prayer of silence is similar to what we call meditation. All of these have the effect of calming the mind and awakening awareness. Thomas Merton is one to read, particularly his last journals. He came to understand that his own, Trappist, Christian tradition led to the same 'mountain peak' or whatever you want to call the awakened state as the Dalai Lama's Gelupga, Buddhist tradition.
Prayer, as practised by many Christians of my aquaintance, is, however, less than useful. The prayer that asks for sunshine at the school fete ignores the need for rain just as the prayer for winning is also a prayer that someone else lose. When prayer is nothing more than a method of reinforcing old attitudes and prejudices, it is worse than useless.
An excellent point. Isn't there a form of compassionate meditation practiced in Buddhism?
I love seeing things like this. I wonder why noone else notices, among high school and colleges, hearing a coach pray:
"Dear Lord - we ask that you grant us the ability to trounce, pummel and destroy the children and/or adults on the other team so that we may receive a victory regarding something that amounts to absolutely nothing. In your name, we pray.
AMEN!
BREAK!
-bf
I've come to realize that I didn't understand then what she was talking about at all. I probably still don't, but I have given it a lot of thought. To me, real prayer is not about mumbling some words or clicking some beads. Real prayer is more like what we term bodhicitta, the union of wisdom and compassion, the ceaseless motivation to be of benefit to others in order to help liberate them from their suffering. If I could generate such love for even 5 minutes, how wonderful that would be!
Palzang