The Power of Prayer

Only one popular Buddhist teacher has written a book about prayer, and thats Thich Nhat Hanh. Many Western Buddhists and mindfulness practitioners today seem unaware of the numerous prayerful traditions and practices of Buddhism in the old world. I myself savor the mystic poems, songs, chants, prayers and sacred music practices of Vajrayana Buddhism. Perhaps because MahayanaVajrayana Buddhism is very inclusive and open to eclecticism, I too feel that way. I wanted to share with you a prayerful poem gifted to me this month, from some Catholic friends.

The Power of Prayer Posted By Lama Surya Das

As we turn our lives to the crosswalk of Lents dark journey, let us locate ourselves vin the intersection and there open a holding space to welcome the world. Over these next weeks exercise your holding heart and make room for the world. Go to your listening place. Open up, within you, open up around you, a space wide and deep. And in the quiet, let the whole world tumble in. All the hurts and hopes of loved ones, of enemies, of neighbors, let them all in. The complex tangles of struggles personal and global, let them in.

Summon the most ravaged and despairing. Find room for those who are sorely afflicted. Let them all come. Bar none! Let this space hold and enfold them! Let the expansive mystery of Gods love envelop all that is confounding, disturbing, unresolved or unrealized. Hold it, hold it all till it fills you. Lift the brimming pitcher and empty yourself into the vast vessel, that is the Sacred Heart.

To more details regarding the Lama Surya Das, visit here at http://www.dzogchen.org/