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Professor William James, the famous psychologist, Dadul: Certainly, asking for help, reaching out to others,
said that “men will continue to pray to the end of is quite a natural occurrence among us humans and can
time because it is a human instinct unless their be part of Buddhist prayer if we understand requesting
mental nature changes in a manner which nothing as a way of making one’s mind open to receiving
we know should lead us to expect”. If prayer has no direction toward growth, direction that one then follows
place in Buddhism, what is the Buddhist solution to in order to transform one’s own mind. However, as
this human instinct? we’ve established above, it wouldn’t be a Buddhist
practice to expect that Buddha or another holy being
Aggacitta: I’m not sure what James means by “pray”. If it would make the adjustment to our mind for us, without
also includes aspiration, then there’s no problem. If he any effort on our part.
means the OLD definition, then the Buddhist solution
is (a) as described by the commentaries in my answer Can we see praying to devas or Bodhisattvas
to the 2nd question and (b) as I answered to the 3rd as merely a skilful means to develop our inner
question above. strength before we proceed to the ultimate practice
of meditation?

Min Wei: Some Buddhists do pray, although prayer is not Aggacitta: Buddhist meditation is either extrospective
part of what the historical Buddha taught. It seems that as in the Four Lofty Abidings (Brahmavihāras) or
praying is a natural human instinct. People often pray introspective as in other samatha and vipassanā
because they want to request a God or the Buddha to do practices. In both these aspects, self-reliance is still
something that they cannot do. What the Buddha taught imperative, so I don’t see how prayer to external beings
us was to rely on our own self rather than others. can be a stepping stone to developing inner strength
for meditation. However, if a meditator encounters
The Buddha directly taught his followers to rely only on insurmountable obstacles or life-threatening danger,
themselves and the Dharma, and to believe only what she could resort to such prayers to supplement her own
they could verify for themselves, through their own inner strength.
direct experience. Buddhism focuses on what we do
through body, speech and mind in this life. Min Wei: Praying in Buddhism is not simply asking for
protection from the Buddha or Bodhisattvas. Instead,
According to the teachings of the Buddha, each of us prayers are used as skilful means to bring the mind to
has the potential to awaken just as the Buddha did. the noble way and to cultivate oneself with the habits
Our ideals are not simply meant to remain outside of of noble qualities such as discipline, selflessness and
ourselves, as objects of worship. If we consider them equanimity.
in our prayers, it’s because we want to come closer to
those ideals in a real way. However, in the true spirit of Buddhism, we need
to understand the real meaning of prayer. The main
Therefore, in Buddhism, we have faith, but our faith objective of prayer is to provide a moment of spiritual
is not superstition, because we know that this kind of reflection on the teachings. So it is not just to seek the
prayer is to radiate spiritual energy. If our prayer is help of Buddha or Bodhisattvas for our problems.
without compassion, insight and transcendent wisdom,
then the prayer becomes mere superstition. The purpose of Buddhist prayer is to awaken our
spirit and our inner ability of compassion, wisdom and