Prayer

digger

I seem to do a lot of my thinking whilst lying in bed before sleep at the moment. Last night I was pondering prayer in Buddhism. Without the concept of a transcendent god that would be able to "hear" and respond to our prayers, what function does prayer actually have? Is praying for someone's well being an act of loving kindness? Are prayers of intercession valid? Thoughts would be much appreciated.

Knitwitch

Can't give you a Buddhist perspective on this Ian but at the very least "prayer" is sending out positive energy which can never be a bad thing.

digger

I've just discover a book by Thich Nhat Hanh called The Energy of Prayer: How to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice. Has anybody read it and/or can recommend it. Knitwitch, I agree that positive energy can never be a bad thing. BTW, I liked your last blog post.

Knitwitch

digger wrote: »

I've just discover a book by Thich Nhat Hanh called The Energy of Prayer: How to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice. Has anybody read it and/or can recommend it. Knitwitch, I agree that positive energy can never be a bad thing. BTW, I liked your last blog post.

Ah bless you love - I haven't read the book, but being as I am thick I don't really get the difference between meditation and sending out the loving kindness to the world and prayer.

I expect there is a technical difference but for me, plodding along as I do, stilling my mind, finding my inner peace and then sending my little light out to join all the other little lights to make one big light, is either prayer OR meditation, or both!

Palzang

When we pray, we pray to Guru Rinpoche. Are we praying to an external being named "Guru Rinpoche"? Not really. Guru Rinpoche is none other than our own true face, our buddhanature. Some people do not have the capacity to understand this, so they pray to an external deity, Guru Rinpoche or whatever, because this is the best understanding they have, but in reality there is no one "out there" to pray to. And yes, prayer does work! We have had numerous instances at our temple of prayer working miracles, producing cures where medical science had pretty much thrown up its collective hands and said, "You're dead." I can't count the number of times that has happened. People with highly malignant cancers whose cancer has just disappeared after we prayed for them and accumulated mantra for them, people with heart conditions that showed up on tests but then disappeared completely after prayers were done for them, and on and on. We had one person who was completely and utterly cured of AIDS after we did prayers for him at the Migyur Dorje Stupa in Maryland. We've left lots of docs scratching their heads, trying to figure out how this could happen!

So prayer does work. How it works, I dunno, but who cares? It works, and it doesn't have to Buddhist prayer to work either. Any sincere prayer works. Maybe it is the positive energy going out like Knitwitch says. I can't really say. It's enough for me to know it works.

Palzang

Knitwitch

That puts it in the same category for me as my computer, car, TV set and sewing machine ..... can see darn well that they work but how??? Got me there, Chief!

Palzang

Well, the computer, car, TV set and sewing machine are easy - they've all got little gerbils inside that run as fast as they can on their little wheels and make the whole thing go! No mystery there...

Palzang

Knitwitch

Ahhhhhhhh - so it is like the machine at the bank with the monkey in it that counts the money and checks your card number? All is revealed!

Palzang

You've got monkeys in your ATMs? So primitive! We use midgets here. But we're much more technologically advanced...

Palzang

Knitwitch

Now you understand why the wages in Europe are so much lower

jacx

My electronics all run on magic smoke. I know this because once the smoke leaks out, the device stops working!

*ahem*

Praying is still a bit difficult for me. Unlike a lot of gwai lo, I don't have much aversion to bowing, probably because of my experience in martial arts. But I'm still not very comfortable with praying.

I'm OK now with praying for other people - I think it's a very kind way to express my concern for them, in times when there's not much I can do to help in a concrete fashion. You know: When you can do nothing, what can you do?

I still don't like to pray for myself, I only do so when Fashir tells me to. Just in case she asks me about it later!

federica

I think the hang-up may be with the word 'prayer'.... Some Buddhists don't like it because it has Deistic overtones and harks back to what an awful lot of them left behind.

I think anything we wish for with spiritual dedication and votive offering, is a prayer. Even keeping the person in mind, even if just by name, as we light a candle, or incense, is 'praying' for them...mentally invoking compassion, loving kindness, relief from pain and suffering...
That's a prayer....

As William Booth said:
"Why should 'The devil' have all the best tunes? "

Knitwitch

I do understand that so much, Jacx. Some words are so emotive because they have overtones of repression and paternalism that we don't feel comfortable with them.

I don't like the word God (capital G masculine).

Perhaps if, as Federica suggests you find another form of words with which you are happy, you might feel better about it. I use "bringing myself (or anyone else) into the Light (of unconditional love and universal compassion" is much more acceptable for me.

But do remember, if you are going to have kindness and compassion for others, it must start with you. (I took an enormous length of time to learn that! )

Simonthepilgrim

It used to matter to me whether prayer "worked" or not.

Then I learned I had heart disease and many people started to pray for me.

Few things in my life have felt quite so supportive and my own prayers opened my eyes to my own self-pity and my fear so that I could learn to know and love that 'dark' part of me.

Now I am sure that prayer, in all its forms, brings benefit for the pray-er and the pray-ee, although it may or may not be 'miraculous' - I really don't care any more about that!

Beyond that, I am of the opinion that connectedness extends throughout the universe. Prayer for the benefit of all beings may or may not benefit them but it sure as heck won't do any harm - and it comes back 'in' and exercises the 'muscles of benevolence'.

As for praying for good weather? Why not? As dear old Louis MacNeice says in Bagpipe Music:

It's no go my honey love, it's no go my poppet;
Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit.
The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall for ever,
But if you break the bloody glass you won't hold up the weather.

Palzang

In reality, that's why prayer does work, because we're all one. There is no separation where you end and I begin. That's why prayer works. It's not mysterious or miraculous in reality. It's just the nature of things as they are. Which appears miraculous to our deluded, dualistic, ego-clinging minds.

Palzang

Brigid

I agree with everyone about this. I think it's a matter of energy. We all emit energy, life force, whatever you want to call it, and what we're thinking manifests in our lives because it's energy. I think, as Fede put it, "mentally invoking compassion, loving kindness, relief from pain and suffering...
That's a prayer....". With our minds we're able to generate energy which is then emitted into the world. When we generate compassion, loving kindness, deep wishes for peace and joy for others, I believe the energy generated goes out into the world to our target. I really do. When our minds are calm and unconfused we can do amazing things with it.

srivijaya

Very nice thread. I'm with you guys on this one. There's more to this than meets the mind. I recently came to understand what I was doing when offering a mandala. I am not offering any-thing to any-one, rather offering the 'lower' to the 'higher'.

In other words, whatever I relinquish from the trash heap of my ego and release into samhadi is, itself, the offering.

Also very much agree with Palzang that "we're all one". The Kunjed Gyalpo makes this plain, as do the Monist Shaivite teachings.