Unexpected Freedom

Prayer and Devotiontesting was part of the process of finding my own way into aprayer life again.By exercising careful mindfulness one can allow suchfears without necessarily believing in them. Just becausewe’re afraid something’s going to happen doesn’t mean thatit will happen. Just because you feel guilty about something,it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve done anythingwrong; just because you want something doesn’t mean thatyou’ll be happy when you get it. We’ve all seen how delusiveapparent reality can be. When I began to offer up my ownprayers in a conscious way I had to bear with my fears, but atthe same time I was also aware of an emerging sense ofgratitude in being able to give voice to these deep longings.Eventually the worries and doubts subsided and I found anatural lightness and ease in what I was doing.One evening I was leading the community at Chithurstwhen a prayer group from a local church came to visit. AfterI had given a talk I asked if there were any questions. One ofthe group put up their hand and said, “What good do you dofor anybody else? You don’t even pray.” I replied that I prayedevery day. She responded, “Well, how can you pray whenyou haven’t got a God?” What I found myself saying was,“The sun shines whether or not it has anything to shine on.”The sun just shines, that is its nature, and likewise it is theheart’s nature to speak and express itself. It is not necessaryto believe in an external ‘other’ receiving us.This incident helped me to come to a clearerunderstanding of prayer from the perspective of Buddhistpractice. I came to see that in my practice the orientation ofattention was inward, whereas the person who had askedthe question was focused on the object of her supplications,that is, a perceived Almighty. I wasn’t expectingintervention from above in the way she was. When I pray it133