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Some Christians -- those who think of God as someone external and powerful and transcendent -- would be surprised to know that Buddhists pray. What would you say to them?”

Maybe Christians and Buddhists understand differently what prayer is. But to begin with, I would say that when we talk of praying, we think of the one who practices praying, the one to whom we address the prayer, and the one we pray for as three persons. And the one we pray for may be ourselves, we pray for our own well-being, but we can always distinguish three persons: the one who prays, the one to whom we address our prayer and the one we pray for.

To say that Buddhists do not address their prayer to an external person or personal force, does not seem to be correct. Praying is also asking for help, and in the Buddhist tradition, we ask the Sangha to help us; we ask the Buddha to help us. The one who is asking, the one who is praying, is the starting point. That person has to see things clearly enough, has to be calm and serene enough, to ask for help; and first of all he or she should be truly there, concentrated, with a desire, an intention. This is the basic condition for the effectiveness of prayer. The one who prays should be truly there, established in the here and now, having a very clear intention, a very clear desire as to whom he or she will pray, and for whom he or she will pray. If the one who prays can put himself or herself in that situation, much has already been done. That person already has begun to generate the energy of prayer, because he or she is truly present in the here and now with concentration, with mindfulness and intention. If that does not happen, well, nothing will happen.

Then, the one to whom he or she prays should be known to him or to her, and not just an idea of a person. If you pray to the Buddha, you should know who the Buddha is, and not just have a number of ideas of the Buddha. If you know who the Buddha is, prayer will be effective. If you feel that the Buddha is fully present in the here and the now, that you have the capacity of touching him or her, then the prayer will be effective. You know that the Buddha is there also within you, in the form of mindfulness, compassion, concentration; so the Buddha is no longer an idea but a reality.

Suppose you pray to your father to ask him to help. Your father: you know who he is. Your father lived long, let’s say to be 90 years old, and the cells of his body are still in you. So when you address your father -- “Daddy, help me” -- you touch your father in a most concrete way; you don’t just touch an idea. Father isn’t an idea. You are the continuation of your father. Suppose someone tells you that you are suspected to have cancer. You can call for your father to help: “Daddy, I know that you are solid, your cells are so wonderful, they are in me; please come and help me.” And then you feel the response of your father right away in your body. Your father says, “I am here. Don’t worry, my child. We have very solid cells. They know how to replicate. Don’t worry.” When you pray like that, you get in touch with your father and you can see the effect of the prayer right away. If you have a grandmother, a grandfather who was solid, you know that the one you pray to is there always in you and around you. So in that kind of practice, you see that your father, your mother, your grandpa, they are still there in their new manifestations. We are not addressing our prayer to someone or something that is not real, that is not existing, but to a reality.

The same is true with Buddha or Jesus. According to our insight, the Buddha continues, Jesus also continues in their new forms. And if you are a Buddhist practitioner, you continue the Buddha; so the Buddha as the object of your prayer is a reality, and not just an idea. That practice relies on the basic insight that nothing is ever lost. Your father is still there, your grandmother is still there, the Buddha is still there in his new manifestations. So the second person in prayer, the one to whom we pray, is concrete, is really there, and we can really get in touch with him or with her. That is why it is very important to have the insight. Jesus, Buddha and grandfather are not something that only existed in the past; they are there in the here and the now. They are within you, around you, and you can get in touch with them. It’s like the Sangha; the Sangha is there, and if you have any difficulty, you just say, “dear brother, dear sister, Sangha, please help.” The Sangha is not a notion; the Sangha is reality.

We know that the Sangha is there, the community of brothers and sisters the community of practitioners is there. We can always rely on the Sangha, and the Sangha always carries the living Dharma and the living Buddha; so touching the Sangha, touching the Buddha, touching the Dharma, you touch realities. And the act of praying is very concrete. It should bring transformation and healing. When we say, “Dear Sangha, please send energy to brother so and so who is in difficulty,” we rely really on the power of the Sangha. We know that the collective energy of the Sangha is real. Because the Sangha contains the Buddha and the Dharma, we also have the energy of the Buddha, we have the living Buddha, the living Dharma with us.

If we practice well, the energy of prayer will be very powerful and right away it can effect a change. That energy is within the one who prays, within the Sangha that supports the prayer in bringing the collective energy. Since the Sangha has the living Buddha, the living Dharma, the energy can be very powerful. That energy is produced from within and it is produced from the Sangha. And we know that that energy can only be generated when mindfulness, concentration and insight are there. You, the one who asks the Sangha to send energy, you have to be fully present. You have to be mindful, concentrated, and you should have the insight that you are one with the one to whom you address your prayer, and you are also one with the one you pray for. That is why insight is important in prayer; and if mindfulness, concentration and insight are present, there will be a transformation and healing.

If you go deep, you see that if Christians pray in that way, with mindfulness, concentration and especially insight, there will be not much difference between Buddhism and Christianity. You know you are a very important part of the prayer. The effectiveness of prayer depends on you very much; because if you are not there, if you are not solid, if you do not have the insight, then you cannot get in touch with the powerful energy of the Sangha, of the Buddha. In Buddhism we do not speak of God, we do not speak of creation, we do not speak of revelation, we do not speak of redemption or punishment. In Buddhism, what is equivalent to God is Mind, especially the collective mind. Mind is the ground of everything; and when your mind gets in touch with the collective mind, everything is possible. If our friends in Christianity see that God is the Spirit -- the collective mind from which everything manifests -- then the distance separating Buddhism and Christianity would not be much at all. It depends on the way we understand God. If we understand God as the ground of being from which everything manifests, then our understanding is not different from the Buddhist vision of mind; because in the teaching of Buddhism, mind is the artist who designs everything, especially the collective mind.

Second Question

“Why is it important to pray with the body?”

Everyone knows that the position of our body is very important in prayer. If you join your palms, if you are in the kneeling position, then you may be more concentrated because you are addressing the Buddha, the Sangha, or Jesus with mindfulness and respect, and you are more truly present. As far as insight is concerned, in the Buddhist tradition we learn that body and mind are not two separate things. The body is part of the mind, and the mind is part of the body. The body is a continuation of the mind and the mind is a continuation of the body. Reality manifests itself as body, as mind, namarupa. When you learn of the twelve links, you know that it is because of ignorance that there is consciousness. If there is no ignorance, consciousness will be called wisdom. Because of the existence of ignorance, that thing is called consciousness. Because there is ignorance, there are impulses that will bring about consciousness; consciousness is the mind with the element of ignorance. And from consciousness manifest body and mind. Because of ignorance we think the body is not the mind and mind is not body; but both manifest from consciousness.

With that kind of vision, the non-duality of mind and body, Buddhists always involve the body in prayer, in meditation. “The contemplation of the body in the body, the contemplation of the mind in the mind.” Body contains mind and mind contains body. That is why, in sitting meditation, in walking meditation, in mindful work, in the practice of breathing, mind and body always become one in order for the practice to be correct, to be fruitful. You don’t just practice meditation with your mind; your mind is only half. You have to meditate with your body. When you touch the ultimate reality, you touch it also with your body and not just your mind. When you touch the kingdom of God or the Pure Land of the Buddha, you touch them with your feet, your hands, your eyes, and not just your spirit. That is why, in the Buddhist tradition, mind and body should be one. They have manifested anyway from the same reality — consciousness -- and in the tradition of Christianity, people have been able to see that also. In order to pray, you have to be quiet, you have to go home to yourself. You have to pray with your heart and not only with your mouth.

Third Question

“How can you avoid falling into the trap of falling into routine when you’re praying, the trap of going through the words or motions without paying attention?”

When you come up here for chanting, when you listen to the chanting, you have to involve all your body and mind. If you do so, you are in concentration, you are in mindfulness; you come into phase with the Sangha and you become one with the Sangha, like a river. You don’t exist any more as an individual; you become the river of the Sangha. The mind should be always with the body. That is why mindful walking as a practice can be considered to be a prayer. You pray with your feet; and when you walk with mindfulness, you touch the kingdom of God, the Pure Land of the Buddha. And you can see the effectiveness of the prayer right away.

When you breathe in and out mindfully, that is real breathing. Body and mind are united. It would be a pity if we just prayed with our mouth -- reciting something, while our mind wanders into the past or into the future, or thinks of our projects. This is not praying, because you are not mindful, you are not concentrated, you do not have the insight. The foundation of prayer is mindfulness, concentration and insight. In the Christian tradition, there are people capable of praying like that, with mindfulness, concentration, and they call it the prayer of the heart. You really pray with your spirit and body together, and not just joining your palms and chanting something. When you come up for chanting, if while you chant you are thinking of something, you have to go home to yourself. “What am I doing? I am performing, I am not practicing. I am performing a chant. I am not practicing, I am not praying at all.”

The other members of the Sangha should remind you of that by their way of chanting, their way of practicing, and you have to help the Sangha to practice like that, body always together with mind, so that we can avoid the trap of practicing only with the form. This trap is universal; it can happen in Buddhism, in Christianity, and in every religion. We know that if the practice is like that, there will be no effectiveness. You do not have the Kingdom of God, you do not have the Pure Land of the Buddha, because you don’t have mindfulness, concentration and insight. I sometimes remind the Sangha before our meals together, such as by saying, “Let us breathe in such a way that many persons become one person.” We have to find ways to say our Five Contemplations before eating so that they don’t become routine, recited just in the form. We also have a poem that we can say silently to help us: “In the dimension of space and time, we chew as rhythmically as we breathe: maintaining the life of all our ancestors, opening an upward path for descendants.” If someone can remind the Sangha before eating, then everyone in the Sangha has a chance to practice in reality and not just in form. When we bow to the altar as part of a ceremony, we have another poem we can say: “The one who bows and the one who is bowed to are not separate; therefore, the communication between them is inexpressibly perfect.” So we need to have reminders of various kinds, stimulating, exhorting, always reminding us, so we don’t fall into that trap of practicing only in the form. We have to be skillful, artful in finding ways to keep our practice alive, and that’s why we should have some encouraging words before walking or sitting meditation.

Fourth Question

"There’s a chapter on meditation in your book on prayer. How do you see the relationship between meditation and prayer in your own life?”

In the spirit of Buddhism, anything you do that is accompanied by mindfulness, concentration and insight can be considered to be a prayer. When you drink your tea in forgetfulness, life is not there. You are not truly alive because you are not there, you are not mindful, you are not concentrated. That moment is not a moment of practice. A secular moment. But when you begin to hold your tea in mindfulness and concentration, and when you drink your tea in perfect mindfulness and concentration, it looks like you are performing a sacred ritual; and that is already a prayer. When you walk, if you enjoy every step; if every step nourishes you, transforms you, every step is a prayer. So in the teaching, the practice, the tradition of Buddhism, there is really no distinction between meditation and prayer, because when you are mindful, concentrated, when you have insight, you get in touch with the Buddha land, with the Buddha, with the Sangha. When you really pray, you get in touch with Jesus, with the Kingdom of God, and getting in touch like that has to bring about transformation and healing. When there is mindfulness, concentration and insight, there is no distinction between the one who prays and the one to whom we address our prayer. That is why the communication is deep, total; and transformation and healing must happen.

When you walk at the airport, every step you make can be a prayer. You are truly alive; you don’t waste your time, your life. When you sit in solidity and freedom, when you breathe in and out in mindfulness, when you touch the wonders of life, that is meditation; that is also a prayer. And in true prayer, there is no longer any separation between the one who prays and the one to whom we pray. In Christianity, our friends say, “living each moment in the presence of God.” If you live with mindfulness, concentration and insight, you never leave God; you are always in touch with God, in the presence of God. When you live every moment of your daily life in the presence of God, it means your daily life is a prayer; and there are those who are capable of doing so. In Buddhism we learn that there are very concrete ways of generating the energy of mindfulness, concentration and insight, and our practice consists of generating these three energies. If these energies are there, there will no longer be any separation between the one who is praying and the one to whom we address our prayer. When you practice mindfulness while sitting, walking, cooking, washing, you don’t feel that you waste your life. You are living every moment of your life deeply. Your life becomes a prayer. Much happiness and peace result from that kind of living.

Fifth Question

“How can people find the time to pray every day?”

This question has been answered partly by what has been said already. When every step becomes a prayer; when every breath becomes a prayer; when each moment of working or driving or eating becomes a prayer, you don’t need to set aside time for praying, because all your daily life is devoted to the practice of praying. Therefore, answering this question, we say that we should not divide the time in that way. Time for working, for eating, for living in forgetfulness, and then a separate time devoted to mindfulness, concentration, insight and prayer -- that is not the way we see it. Every moment of our daily life can be a moment of prayer, of meditation, of practice. We need to be trained in order to do so. There are moments when we are not truly alive, we are pulled away, carried away by our worries, our anger, our projects; and we waste our life because of that. Nobody wants to waste his or her life. We want to live our life deeply, and the only way is by praying, by generating the energy of mindfulness, concentration and insight, and then we can live very deeply every moment of our daily life. Our life is a life of practice, is a life of prayer, and there is no distinction between the time of praying and the time of “living” or non-praying.

Sixth Question

“What is the one thing people can do every day that will bring them closer to the happiness they seek?”

We are so busy; we don’t want to do so many things. We want to know just one thing that we can do to get closer to the happiness we seek every day. I think that moving around with mindfulness, walking mindfully, may be what we propose as a gift, because we move a lot during our daily life. If you want to go from here to there, even if you need only to make five or six steps, and if you know how to make these steps mindfully, that can already be very helpful. You walk to the garage, enjoy every step you make. Don’t think of anything else, just enjoy walking. You walk to the office, to your workplace or to the dining hail: every step you make should bring you back to the here and the now so that you can enjoy what is going on. I think if all people on Earth were to know how to enjoy walking mindfully, that would transform the Earth and society already; because everyone would have the secrets of becoming more mindful, everyone would know how to enjoy each step they make.

Walking meditation is something everyone can do. There are those of us who find it difficult to practice sitting meditation; but walking -- everyone walks. So 1 propose that everyone -- whether they are in Berkeley, or New York, or Amsterdam, or Paris, or Bangkok -- enjoy mindful walking; and every time they make a mindful step, they stop their forgetfulness, they go back to life, they touch the wonders of life for their healing and transformation. Walking meditation is very pleasant, transforming and healing. I propose to the readers of Publishers Weekly magazine that everyone take up the practice of walking meditation to begin with, and that will change their life. When you practice walking mindfully, you include your body with your mind. You include your breath, you become fully present, fully alive, and you get closer to the happiness you are seeking.

Athugasemdir

[Guðmundur Helgi Helgason (IP-tala skráð) 6.12.2007 kl. 01:31]

Hehe ertu bara farin að blogga heilli bók hérna ;) Ég les þetta við tækifæri.

[Ingibjörg, 6.12.2007 kl. 14:25]

ja haha for aðeins of mikið inn nuna