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Can prayers or chanting give you protection in any way?
Can Lord Buddha and/or the devas offer you protection if you chant or pray for them? I'm hesitant to believe in it, as it feels more like a theistic religion to me that way. But then I began chanting and found out about the paritta chants which are specifically about asking for protection. Do they work? Can you please give an answer according to Theravada Buddhism? Thank you!
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There is no protection from ourselves needed or necessary. We will have to take refuge or protection in the 3 jewels and apply their teaching.
"Thereupon the Buddha delivered this Jewel Discourse (Ratana sutta) to the Venerable Ananda, and gave him instructions as to how he should tour the city with the Licchavi citizens reciting the discourse as a mark of protection to the people of Vesali." (Translator's introduction, Ratana Sutta: The Jewel Discourse, translated from the Pali by Piyadassi Thera. Alternate translation: Thanissaro; This sutta also appears at Khp 6.)
Another is the Atanatiya Sutta, the thirty-second sutta of the Digha Nikāya, preached at the Gijjhakūta (D.iii.194ff):
"...in order that the Buddha's disciples, haunting lonely and remote parts of the forest where the Yakkhas dwelt, might find protection from them, Vessavana suggested that the Buddha might learn the ātānātiya word-rune (rakkha). The Buddha agreeing, Vessavana proceeded to recite it....The Buddha learnt the word-rune and taught it to the monks."
The Candima Sutta and Suriya Sutta of the Samyutta Nikaya present the concept of requesting aid directly from the Buddha by reciting short verses; in these suttas, the Buddha answers their request. (Piyadassi Thera (trans.), Candima Sutta: The Moon Deity's Prayer for Protection (SN 2.9))
In the Angulimala Sutta, the monk Angulimala meets a pregnant woman having difficulty with labor; Angulima asks the Buddha for help, and the Buddha tells Angulimala to recite this verse to the woman:
"Sister, since I was born in the noble birth, I do not recall intentionally killing a living being. Through this truth may there be wellbeing for you, wellbeing for your fetus." (Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Angulimala Sutta: About Angulimala (MN 86))
V.F. Gunaratna notes:
"The word paritta, in this context, was used by the Buddha, for the first time, in a discourse known as Khandha Paritta in the Culla Vagga of the Vinaya Pitaka (vol. ii, p. 109), and also in the Anguttara Nikaya under the title "Ahi (metta) Sutta" (vol. ii, p. 82). This discourse was recommended by the Buddha as guard or protection for the use of the members of the Order. The Buddha in this discourse exhorts the monks to cultivate metta or loving-kindness towards all beings."
Some scholars of this topic refer to the paritta working due to its asseveration (saccakiriya), or positive declaration, of a truth:
"Protection results by the power of such asseveration. This means establishing oneself in the power of truth to gain one's end. At the end of the recital of each sutta, the reciters bless the listeners with the words, etena sacca vajjena sotti te hotu sabbada which means "by the power of the truth of these words may you ever be well." The saying, "the power of the dhamma or Truth protects the follower of the dhamma" (dhammo have rakkhati dhammcarin) indicates the principle behind these sutta recitals." (V.F. Gunaratna)
He cant hear them though and doesn't see them very clearly, just the outline. He gets all itchy when they' re near as well.
So i taught him " om mane padme hum", short and easily remembered. It works, they stop when he chants. Usually until he goes away from the place. And he' s a Christian...
He said there are a number of different causes for things, and karma was just one cause. From what I can remember, he also said there were three other causes of events/experience/whatever. One was simple chance, but I can't remember what the other two are, doh!
Anyway, he specifically said that not everything that happened to us was because of our karma.
You've got me interested now, what's the school of Buddhism that says there is not one experience we have that we have not created a cause for? It's always interesting to see how other schools approach things eh, helps me get a better understanding of the whole thing.
Thanks.
My Tibetan lama says that karma is just provisional like "the sun only rises in the East". This pretty much jibes with Buddha's own word "only a Buddha understands Karma" (i think he said that somewhere).
If sutras expound the Dharma then the mantras contain the essence of those teachings, and for many are considered enlightened speech.
I had a nasty addiction to chewing tobacco, and I wanted to quit. Every time I had an urge to have a dip I would recite the mantra of the perfection of wisdom:
tadyatha gate' gate' paragate' parasamgate' bodhi svaha!
It would quell the urge when I had one and of course over time the strength of the craving naturally diminished until it was finally gone so in this case it worked for me. I had tried to quit a few times before, but this time it wasn't such a struggle and I have been free from the addiction for a number of years now.
Buddha no longer exist, so i dont think you can get any protection from him.
the next question is do you believe devas exist, and how powerful do you think they are?
but if you believe in karma, you do good and avoid evil.
that is the best protection.
Hmm. No, I don't see much similarity between gravity working or not, and chants or prayers working or not as protection.
Gravity works, it's been proven. Prayers and chants only work to change one's own mindset and perceptions according to how strongly one believes they work.
Prayers and chants are a loose, light form of self-hypnosis and self-soothing.
Praying really hard or chanting really loud will not keep you afloat if you step off a ledge, but gravity will pull you down every time.
"By Western scientific standards none of the texts ascribed to Buddha – neither the sutras nor the tantras – can pass the test for authenticity.
No one recorded Buddha's discourses when he held them two and a half thousand years ago, since Indian custom at the time limited the use of writing to business and military affairs.
The year after Buddha passed away, however, five hundred of his followers gathered in a council at which three of his main disciples recounted different portions of his words. Subsequently, different groups of monks took responsibility to memorize and periodically to recite specific sections of them.
The responsibility passed from one generation of disciples to the next. These words became the [early] sutras. Their claim to authenticity rests exclusively on faith that the three original disciples had perfect recall and that those at the council who corroborated their accounts all remembered the same words. These two provisions are impossible to establish scientifically.
Private circles orally transmitted even some of the most famous [early] texts before the major monastic assemblies accepted them into the corpus of what they openly recited. Therefore, the absence of a text from the first council's agenda does not disprove its authenticity." (Berzin, 2002)
Well worth the read, the article's purpose isn't to cast doubt, but to show that neither pre-Mahayana, Mahayana, nor Vajrayana tradition has a scientific claim over the others in tracing a particular teaching back to the Buddha.
On the flip side of that coin, "questionable" origins, such as one-to-one personal teachings, teachings not written down until much later, or teachings existing only orally to this day--all those qualities apply or have applied to Theravada Buddhism as well as Mahayana Buddhism, even though they are more commonly discussed as Mahayana features.
That means simply that our personal view of any teaching's "authenticity" must rely, as Berzin puts it, on something "other than linguistic factors and the date of initial redaction."
if your prayers and chanting are your connection to everything else, then that alone is the acknowledgement of a profound spiritual truth. For a Buddhist, this is protection.
If however your prayers and chanting are performed as the means of empowering your own sense of identity, then those actions will inevitably manifest as the very cause of your own suffering.
So prayers and chanting can be either helpful or a hinderence. The responsibility for the results rests with you, not with them.
while i cannot prove the authenticity of buddhist suttas, it has not change for more than 1000 years.
if we apply the same standard to the exploits of alexander the great, how much of it would be 'authentic'?
how do you prove or disprove something that was said 2500 years ago?
the fact that all the different schools of buddhism accept the suttas as buddha's words speaks volumes about its credibility.
That was excellently said, and I’m glad you shared it with us.
The following is a comment, actually yesterday; from a contemporary father of the Church on a topic regarding historical biblical accounts and a history critical or fundamentalist literalist approach that I think sort of fits in with what you posted despite the difference in traditions:
“What really happened?” In many cases “really” is unreachable. What we have is a theological account – or even an account of the history through a theological lens. A “time-machine” would be needed, I suppose, to arrive at the “what really happened” kind of answer. That doesn’t mean we know nothing – it means that the basis of our faith and belief is not exactly time-machine generated. Some want to use the Scripture as a sort of time-machine, but that would seem unfaithful to what it is actually doing.
I believe the waters of the Red Sea parted – but if you pressed me to describe what I think that looked like – how could I answer? Ultimately, God delivered Israel from Egypt, “through the Red Sea on dry land.” And the event shaped the very existence as God’s people. What we can do, is enter into the experience of that deliverance through the life of Christ in the Church as we are delivered from the bondage of death and hell ourselves.
This kind of approach creates an anxiety in us, I think, because we have had a long habit of thinking in a literal-historical manner about everything. And so we fight others on behalf of the literal nature of every detail – finally being more concerned with that fight than with the life that is revealed to us in the story itself.
My own intuition about these things is fairly historical. I have a confidence about much of the historical character of what has been given to us. But I don’t want to spend the bulk of my Christian life (and the few years I have left) worrying about it.
I want to live it – for this I know is possible. And become Israel crossing the Red Sea on Dry Land.
If I were to apply this to the current discussion, then, I'd guess that the spirit may show there's a time and place for protective recitation, and that more than a simple "magic formula," it is a matter of skillful use--or focus--of the mind.
That would explain why the Buddha in some cases instructed people in recitation, and at other times said not to rely on mere recitation; it is the mind of the individual reciter which is important--the mantra or dharani or paritta is just a tool for the mind. The tool can be used properly or improperly.
Mantras seem to be closer to "mere incantation" at first glance, but if you notice how the Buddha instructs people in their use, he says things like, "focus on the sound of these words" (will find a reference for this). It seems clearly to be at least in part a meditation instruction. With the prayers, on the other hand, he seems to make it clear that it's the meaning and intent of the words--and their asseveration--that is the focus.
Looking forward to digging up some early references to mantra vs. dharani vs. paritta, etc., to see how the instructions on use may differ.
Belief, perception, intention, etc are all bounded up with consciousness.
Thus if you truly believe it then that will be how its constructed.
Prayer and chanting do have great benefit. One can chant and pray and even meditate for hours and one can actively see the great benefits. Whether it is more calm, peace, recondition oneself to practice and right effort. Truly play with the causes/conditions!
Some people have interpreted this sutta as stating that there are many experiences that cannot be explained by the principle of kamma. A casual glance of the alternative factors here — drawn from the various causes for pain that were recognized in the medical treatises of his time — would seem to support this conclusion. However, if we compare this list with his definition of old kamma in SN 35.145, we see that many of the alternative causes are actually the result of past actions. Those that aren't are the result of new kamma. For instance, MN 101 counts asceticism — which produces pain in the immediate present — under the factor harsh treatment. The point here is that old and new kamma do not override other causal factors operating in the universe — such as those recognized by the physical sciences — but instead find their expression within those factors.
I can say with confidence though that reciting mantras will offer protection against the negative influences of our own thoughts and emotions.
With regards to mantra recitation I think the more one becomes familiar with the sutras they are typically associated with the more powerful they become, and eventually become internalized and natural like breathing. This is similar to what we would refer to as to pray without ceasing in which the Jesus Prayer of our Hesychast tradition is used rather than a mantra. It too is recited not simply, not just as it happens, not carelessly, but with watchfulness.
Sometimes during this prayer the words fall away leaving one in inner stillness of complete silence, with no thoughts, but completely aware and serene. The mountains are walking or as Christ described the mountains falling into the sea would be the best way I can describe the experience, or simply God praying in you.
Anyway, these practices don't mean of course that nothing won't happen to us in our lives that others normally would think negative like being hit by a car, falling ill, receiving a bad grade, etc... but our clinging and attachment to them can be progressively lessened the more we practice and internalize them.
I'm looking forward to what more you find out too.
Thanks!
In the present, we often chant them without knowing their meaning, bcos its in a foreign language. If anyone were to read the translations, they carry meaning!
Also, when Monks chant (everyday for some) the audience comprises beings from other realms who come to learn. ( goto ForrestDhamma books for reference, know you guys always insist on this). So it has a function and reason.
Everyone of us has an aura, only we dont see it, awakened people have a very bright aura, the sick and dying has the opposite. Well the other realms for sure see it clearly and they gravitate towards these people, to ask for help (bright auras).
Lost souls need all the help and like those of you who study the Sutras, they are just trying to do the same, to hear the words being spoken, to learn the way. So why are you guys studying Buddhism?
So when we repeat the Sutras, they listen, do it long enough, an audience would have formed, aggressive ones are difficult, thats when the deities come in to 'moderate'.
Its preferable to start with the Buddha invocation, "Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasam Buddha", so it gets official status....
For those who always need proofs and who dont believe in the other realms, well too bad, some things can never be proven to others, only to those who can see or feel them.
For non believers, chant the 'Great Compassion Mantra', at night, over a period of time and see if you feel anything. (go look for it in the internet).
Anyway by repeat i phrase your mind starts to absorb your statement and start to believe what your saying. So in theory if you took a statement such as " i wish for everyone to have love and protection wherever they may go" you brain may start o believe it and on a subconscious level alter your daily activities accordingly.
I know they is some technical reasoning behind it but i could for the life of me tell you.
All the best
Are "lost souls" not helped on the other side by others in their own realm?
Why would they just be 'abandoned' there - lost- and looking for/needing someone here, in this realm, for help??
Is it our place to be 'schooling' those in other realms as spirits, ghosts or what have you? Isn't that pretty, well, arrogant, to assume we have that 'power' and/or control over other realms and the souls in them?
I'm not bringing this up just to be contrary- I really wonder sometimes why people think we have ANY control over spirits, other realms, etc, or are needed by those in other realms to "help" them find their way, etc.
It just makes absolutely no sense to me -at all- even when I was involved in all sorts of groups and practices where people believed they had that power/gift whatever they wish to call it.
If we, as Buddhists, are supposed to believe that everything -- every thing -- is seen through our veil of ego and delusion, why would we ever believe we have any sort of understanding about what goes on beyond our realm - without that too being perceived through our egos and delusions?
As for your question as to why [we] study Buddhism... I know this is not a common or popular viewpoint, but- I don't "study" Buddhism.
Instead, I try to apply its basic core foundations to my life, on a daily basis. I am not deluding myself into thinking that thousands of hours of meditation, reading thousands of pages of texts, or pointedly striving for Enlightenment is the path TO Enlightenment. To me that is exactly the kind of attachment and craving that distracts from living Buddhism.
But that's just me. (and maybe a few others here in this forum (?) but millions of other Buddhists around the world might lean the same way I do...)
I have no problem with others working things out for themselves in any manner they like.
But all the spirit realms, chanting, channeling, invoking spirits, and religious/unknown/unknowable aspects of Buddhism is just not in my playbook. At least not in this Lifetime.
It's very much the same as the view of the Native Americans I lived with - the deceased is present, or near, and can benefit--especially shortly after death--from prayers and practices and even specially-prepared food.
The food, for example, is not something the deceased really needs, having temporarily shed the physical body, but the mind of the deceased is so used to eating, that he/she still feels hunger, in much the same way an amputee still experiences pain in the missing limb.
Confused and without a familiar physical body to rely on, a person or being in this state who would like to hear dharma or feels the need for a prayer, must count on loved ones or other caring people to try and provide this for him/her.
This concept of being aware but not able to physically interact is very reminiscent of the near death experiences in the other thread.
It sounds as if this "takes away" from helping physical beings, but by Buddhist standards, a being doesn't cease to exist simply when the body decays; they need assistance just as much as when they were in the body we recognized. If one simply doesn't believe these beings exist any more after death, then it will seem frustrating to hear others talk of helping them; but for those who believe they continue to exist, it would be unthinkable to not help them if one is able.
One can't possibly help all the beings in the world, visible or not visible; one just has to do ones' best.
However, I think chanting or praying is initially more beneficial for the one performing it, because if done with the right motivation it opens one's heart towards others.
Physical bodies "feel" physical things like pain & hunger, and feel emotional things like joy and sorrow, through signals sent from the brain as a result of physical or emotional stimuli.
When one leaves their physical body, there is no brain to send signals of emotion or feeling - and - there is no physical body to receive/react to them. Therefore I have to go with saying a spirit on the other side, (if, what has left the body is in fact a "spirit" that keeps some kind of human shape or form) would not experience hunger, pain, or emotions like a sense of loss or joy. They just are what they are - whatever that may be.
What we do, traditionally, such as placing meals on the table for our ancestors, or chanting prayers or mantras to 'send them on their way' (even though we have no clue where they are going), is done for the living- for comfort and soothing, as well as to show respect for the one passed. I honestly don't believe it affects 'them' on the other side in any way.
( So here is where I mostly agree with Silouan, when he said: "I think chanting or praying is initially more beneficial for the one performing it, because if done with the right motivation it opens one's heart towards others." ) No real argument with that....
Like I said, I don't believe we here can influence the spirit realm one way or the other. What we think we can do, or affect, in their realm- is, in actuality, only what we believe we can do and affect. I don't have that belief.
That is on many levels, the 'faith' part of Buddhism, much like various afterlife beliefs are the faith part of most religions.
This is the reasoning behind my way of thinking... not judgment for anyone else's.
So if a spirit cannot have any sense pictures then what is the experience of a spirit?
There are countless treatises examining the nature of consciousness after death, but some instances where "East meets West" on this issue involve such things as the body remaning warm days after the heart has stopped. By Western medical standards, such a thing is not possible.
I find Dr. Mitchell Levy's account about the 16th Karmapa touching, and fascinating. This is only the end part of what was a very provocative experience for this Western doctor:
"Trungpa Rinpoche arrived at the hospital shortly after that, not knowing whether His Holiness was alive or not. So I had to tell him that he had died...Even in death, His Holiness did not cease to amaze the Western medical establishment At forty-eight hours after his death, his chest was warm right above his heart. This was how it happened. Situ Rinpoche took me into the room where His Holiness was lying. First I had to wash my hands completely and put a mask on. And Situ Rinpoche walks in and puts his robe over his mouth, as if even breathing might disturb the samadhi of His Holiness. And he took my hand, and he put my hand in the center of His Holiness' chest and then made me feel it, and it felt warm.
And it's funny, because since I had washed my hands in cold water, my Western medical mind said, 'Well, my hands must still be a little cold.' So I warmed my hands up, and then I said to Situ Rinpoche, 'Could I feel his chest one more time?' He said, 'Sure,' and he pulled down His Holiness' robe and put my hand on his chest again. My hands were warm at this point, and his chest was warmer than my hand. To check, I moved my hand to either side of his chest, and it was cool. And then I felt again in the middle, and it was warm.
I also pinched his skin, and it was still pliable and completely normal. Mind you, although there is some variation, certainly by thirty-six hours, the skin is just like dough. And after forty-eight hours, his skin was just like yours and mine. It was as if he weren't dead. I pinched his skin, and it went right back. The turgor was completely normal.
Shortly after we left the room, the surgeon came out and said, 'He's warm. He's warm.' And then it became, the nursing staff was saying, 'Is he still warm?' After all that had happened, they just accepted it. As much as all that had happened might have gone against their medical training, their cultural beliefs, and their religious upbringing, by this point they had no trouble just accepting what was actually occurring.
This is, of course, quite in keeping with traditional Tibetan experience, that realized people like His Holiness, after their respiration and heart have stopped [the outer dissolution], abide in a state of profound meditation for some time [the 'ground luminosity' that follows the inner dissolution,] with rigor mortis not setting in during that period.
One thing I should mention is the quality of the room where he was lying. The tulkus said, 'His Holiness is in samadhi' [i.e., resting in the dharmakaya of ground luminosity]. What people experienced in that room seemed to depend on varying levels of perception.
I asked Trungpa Rinpoche about it. He said that when he walked into that room, it was as if a vacuum had sucked out all the mental obstacles. There was no mental chatter. It was absolutely still. Everything was starkly simple and direct. He said that it was so one-pointed that there was no room for any kind of obstacle at all. And he said that it was absolutely magnificent.
My experience wasn't quite like that. To me, the air felt thin and there was a quiet that was unsettling in a way. There was no familiarity, no background noise. It was like being in some other realm, one that was absolutely still and vast. It was just His Holiness' body in the center of the room, draped in his brocade robe, and you felt as if you didn't even want to breathe. That was my experience. It felt as if anything I did would disturb that stillness. My actions screamed at me. I mean, all of my coarseness and vulgarity just shouted at me.
It felt as if in each movement I made toward his body, I was hacking away at something thick to get through it. And everything I did was clumsy. And from a normal point of view, it wasn't. I was just walking. But there was an air of stillness, an awareness in that room that was overpowering. I understood what Trungpa Rinpoche meant about vacuum, because it felt like that.
After about three days, His Holiness samadhi was still continuing. It was interesting, because the doctors and nurses were as concerned as the younger tulkus that we leave his body there and not move it until the samadhi ended. This was unusual, because ordinarily when someone dies, hospital staff want to get rid of the body a quickly as possible. That's just the way we do it in the West.
After three days, the samadhi ended. You could tell because His Holiness was no longer warm, and rigor mortis finally set in. And also the atmosphere in the room changed, becoming more normal . . . .
The entire experience had had very pronounced effects on everyone involved, especially the non-Buddhists, who were the majority of those there. Just to give one example, the assistant administrator, one of the people who had been close to these events, one night was reading in some of the books on Buddhism that someone had lent her. She came to me the next morning and said the thing that she liked about these books was that after reading them, they pretty much matched some conclusions that she had come to on her own. They really made sense to her. And so I think that people there made very powerful connections with His Holiness and Buddhism. It will be interesting to see who he brought in, even in his death."
Dr. Mitchell Levy was attending physician to the 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje. There is much more to this particular story, which can be read in its entirety at the above link. Not trying to force my beliefs on anyone - just showing the reasoning that led me to them.