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    Prayer: Interview with Robert Jinsen Kennedy Roshi Paid Member

    Kennedy Roshi was ordained as a Catholic priest in Japan in 1965 and installed as a Zen teacher in 1991 and given the title Roshi in 1997 by Bernie Glassman Roshi. He is chair of the Theology Department, St. Peter’s College, Jersey City, New Jersey, where he teaches Theology and Japanese language. How do you understand prayer as a Catholic? Prayer is a vague word. Some pray by reciting the psalms or by the liturgy or by private personal devotions or by silence. Paying attention is the foundation of any form of prayer, and that is why zazen can be a wonderful form of prayer for those who are temperamentally inclined to it. Paying attention is a reverent, grateful presence to reality and that can certainly be prayer. We need not use the words or images when we pray, but attention is essential. Is zazen as prayer problematic for a Christian who believes in a deity? More »
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    Prayer: Gareth Sparham Paid Member

    By Gareth Sparham
    The most basic Buddhist prayer is “may all beings find peace,” which expresses the positive mental state of lovingkindness. It is not a prayer directed to some higher power outside the meditator, but the articulation of an attitude; at a deeper level, an aspiration; and at a still deeper level, a commitment. Lovingkindness is cultivated by the inner expression of this “prayer,” so that the meditator not only feels the peace of an open heart, but also in order that the meditation itself is not just another act dominated by narrow, selfish aims. In the earliest Buddhist literature, such basic prayers are called brahma-viharas (“the grounds of a spiritual person”), because they are the basic underpinning of a spiritual life, turning the activity that follows into a spiritual one. Such prayer is not particularly Buddhist at all, but expresses the basic attitude of spiritual life. More »