The Prayers

A long time ago, I struggled with the word "Prayer." Having grown up Catholic, I had a lot of time to consider what it meant for me. With a negative mind, I looked at it as being at a point of desperation and a kind of failure. It was a kind of mental or psychological weakness. At 20 years old, I had figured, if you had to ask God for help when you obviously needed it, then he was pretty cruel. Because of that line of thinking, I had nothing but contempt for the word.

At 21 and arriving in a 12 Step fellowship, related to addiction, the word "Prayer," came up a lot. I talked to a friend Blyth about it and told him, "I have no faith, in what I cannot see. I don't get it. Prayer seems a weak fallback position, but for some reason I feel something about it so I'm asking You." Blyth replied, "I feel prayer isn't such a bad thing. Prayer is like reaching your mind out, not just to a specific Higher Power per se' but people and life as well. Prayer is remembering a connection we have with all things. There is another aspect of prayer too that we can focus on. If You pray, sending positive intentions and hope towards someone or something you're struggling with, though that person, place or thing might not change, maybe your attitude will."

When Blyth put it in that context, it somehow connected. I was able to relax my mind.

There was a time when I was really mad at my father, because of some tough things that happened when I was growing up. I really hated and despised him, because he was such an abusive alcoholic. He could be an impressively cruel person. The thought of even talking with him could send me into an emotional spiral. At one point, Blyth told me to take a minute or two and pray for him, every day, for two weeks. Because I came to trust Blyth, I followed the instruction.

At the end of the two weeks, my father had changed, because how I thought and felt about him changed. Where before, I was really hard and stiff in dealing with him, the positive intentions within the prayers softened not just my heart but my mind. As I was trying to free him from a kind of prison that he lived in, I was freeing myself too.

Through the positive intentions within saying prayers or chants, my mind was finding a little more harmony and unification.

Nowaways when I reach the end of Zazen sitting peroid, I place my hands in gassho and make a prayer. I've learned to dedicate any merit from that sitting to all beings. Any strain, anxiety, anger or other types of suffering that they may be experiencing, I ask that it be relieved and I visualize kindness and compassion radiating out like water, washing over all being. I have no empirical data citing that my prayers and intentions help anyone, but I like to feel that it is so. Perhaps that reflects the Bodhisattva Mind that we all have. What was once narrow, was made vast through our prayer.

May Your Life Go Well,

Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
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