Article #232
Subject: thoughts on similarities of Teresa's methods with Buddhist and HIndu methods of prayers
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 1/26/2014 06:24:13 PM
The Vanderbilt Divinity School Biblical readings website, which we have
provided a URL link to from our root webpage, lists three types of prayers
associated with the yearly New/Old Testament lectionary:
1) thematic prayers or dealing with obtaining spiritual understanding of the
objective conceptual meanings of God’s being in communion with us.
2) intercessory – prayers in which we place our self in others’ places and
pray for help and healing flowing, helped by God, from us to them.
3) Scriptural- or meditations on the words and meanings of the Biblical
verses themselves.
One difference between Christian or Jewish and Buddhist affirmations and
denials is our emphasis on God’s independent existence. In the Diamond That
Cuts Through Illusion Sutra Buddhist scripture it is stated that “The Buddha
teaching is neither not self-existent nor self-existent.” The Buddha is a
human and not God (who is self-existent) he is not self-existent. As the
sutra says, since he is made of non-self-existent things, he is not self-
existent. A key attribute of the God we pray to for Christians is that He is
our Father (creator) in Heaven and hence different from us and hence self-
existent. We do not pray to someone who is ‘neither self-existent nor not
self-existent’, but to someone who is ‘self-existent’. Humans beings are both
like God and unlike God. We are like God because we were made in the image of
someone Who is self-existent. We are unlike God because we did not make
ourselves, and without God we could not have been made.
Another difference between Buddhist and Christian prayers is the emphasis by
Christians on faith.
Mindfulness (thinking about thinking) and Faith (letting God be the one who
does the thinking for us) are two different reflections of two different
truths. Mindfulness is important to develop better listening, looking more
deeply into ourselves, our situations, and others, compassion, wisdom in us.
Faith helps us find spiritual understanding and purpose where it did not
exist before. Prayer without faith is not prayer. We can be mindful and
aware in order to remember who we already are, but to be something more than
we are we need faith in something more than we currently are (and all prayer
should have a purpose to help us improve ourselves or others in some way).
In the verses preceding the fundamental Shema prayer explaining how God
has ‘most lovingly loved us’, there are three types of creation. There is
1) ‘Boray’, a Divine unitive creation in Heaven of light in darkness, there
is ‘Yotzer’, a Divine two-fold creation that ‘forms’ light in a world of
becoming,
And there is ‘Aseh’, a Divine four-fold creation of ‘making or placing’ light
and peace on earth inside of high places in us. ‘Yotzer’ is the two-fold
creation of in the material world of the present moment. In this world we
experience the simultaneous contradictions of events happening around us in
which the Buddha dwells. The Diamond Sutra refers to a Logos or principle of
Christian Truth in this sense.
‘Boray’ creation is not two-fold but three-fold it is a ‘unity in
diversity’.
When we confess our sins and ask for prayer help from God. We should be aware
that, since His Holy Spirit dwells in us, if we cannot find God in those
around us we can depend on Him being inside of us. But, this is not to say
that we should not ask first, as Teresa explains to us in “The Way to
Perfection”, who is this Father in Heaven that we are praying to? We need to
understand that we are not praying to some emptiness inside of the present
moment of our experiences we get from the World, but we are praying to a real
person who we are in communion with, can talk and ask questions to, and who
lives not on the present moment here on Earth but dwells in the past,
present, and future moments of Heaven proceeding/coming down among us on
Earth.
In the Diamond Sutra the question is asked “Does the Buddha have the human
eye?” and the question is asked “Does the Buddha have the Divine eye?” But,
the question “Does the Buddha have the human eye made of the Divine eye?” is
not asked. In the entire world there is no such a thing as “just a man”.
Human eyes are only possible because we also have divine eyes.
Some people today will tell you that, since the Church and the current Bible
is here nowadays, there is no longer any need for the divine eyes inside of
each of us healing and speaking prophecy(that come through the gifts of the
Holy Spirit that St. Paul described.
I believe the nine flowers God put on menorah in our Torah are nine gifts of
the Holy Spirit. Let's pray for us and ask God to receive them now, even
though the current Bible and the current Church already exists.
1 Corinthians 12:8-11
New International Version (NIV)
8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a
message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the
same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another
miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between
spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still
another the interpretation of tongues.[b] 11 All these are the work of one
and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he
determines.
Father Morello in his short book "Lectio Divina and the Practice of Teresian
Prayer" lists four methods
mental prayer--taking time to be frequently acquainted with the Lord--
I take this to be similar (and helped by) the Buddhist techniques of
mindful awareness of God's Holy Spirit in the World around us and ourselves.
vocal prayer--formulary prayer, a prefabricated set of words and sentiments--
-
This seems familiar to us through our practice of daily Bible readings
according to a preset yearly lectionary
Also, Eastern Mantra prayers are formulas. They each have a certain number
statements like a syllogism and each of the statements in the mantra has a
certain number of syllables. The number of syllables in the mantra or formula
gives a clue to the metaphysical substance it represents. For instance, the
five-fold count of the mantra OM Namah Shivaya represents the five-fold
metaphysical substance or structure or body of the divine being Shiva or
absolute consciousness. This body of God in terms of absolute consciousness
by itself cannot represent all there is to the Name of our One God’s
substance and power because absolute consciousness by itself cannot forgive
or heal it just passes or the problems or happiness it is aware of in the
past, present, future to it. The mantra Hail Mary, blessed art Thou, and
blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Has three statements of 3, 5, 5 counts in
it. The letters and sounds ‘M’ and ‘Rri’ represent individuality and purpose
in our group consciousness (in the Jewish, Christian, and Hindu matrika‘M’ is
located mostly in the 4th chakra the maha chakra) and will, emotion, effort
toward divine truth in our 3rd and 5th chakras.
Each mantra or prayer formula like this has a divine being with its own
divine substance, a corresponding sound, and a purpose. If the mantra has
several statements, its purpose is usually to realize a principle of divine
truth in us. All of this cannot be connected not only to religion but to
philosophy in terms of the ancient 17 Aristotelian syllogisms. Some of the
single syllable seed sound mantras or Bija mantras have a connection to the
prophetic seeds of God’s absolute consciousness and will mentioned in Jesus
Christ fundamental parable teachings, the parable of the sower and the seeds.
You may want to see our separable discussion of this topic elsewhere on the
website.
The prayer of recollection and meditation--ascetism and much discursive
discriminative reflection with the intellect--
This important method comes after the first two in Saint Teresa de Avila’s
scheme of contemplation.
It is given as a prelude to her wondelful and helpful explaination of the
fine points of praying our own Lord’s prayer later in the book.
Like St. Ignatius Loyala’s (see elsewhere on our site for a discussion of his
prayer methods) involves mindfulness in terms of recollection and confession
of our debts and transgressions to God and others, sins to God and others,
our iniquities which will become known (and also those that may never be
known) in the presence of ourselves, God, and others, and shortcomings.
Also, I believe that taken in his Bhakti, Karma, Raga, Jnana order of Yogic
praying this can be no other than Patanjali's Chapter IV sutras of Jnana Yoga
Finally, after all of this comes:
contemplative prayer--not produced by our efforts, a gratuitous experience
of the infusing of the spirit of God that gives light to our soul and warmth
to our heart---
Is this not the culmination of Patanjali's eight limbed procedure Samadhi?
whether it be "with distinguishing marks" "with words" "without
words" "without distinguishing marks"?
Some more detailed and complete references for this:
"The Way of Perfection" by E. Allison Peers"
"The Prayers of Teresa de Avila" by father Thomas Alvarez, O.C.D.
"Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali" by Swami Hariharananda
Subject: How God and Christ's grace heals us
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 2/19/2009 09:31:21 AM
Also, in her book "The Interior Castle" (in which she explains further
expands on her method of prayers) our dove, our silkworm turned butterfly
explains to us that in the fourth dwelling place of our Lord and us in her
there is a difference between consolations (which begin with requests from us
for something and an answer from God resulting from our own efforts,
accompanied by his grace) and infusions (spiritual delight received not
through human efforts but unmerited and passively).
Here she seems to me to be explained what Yogi's call the difference between
savitarka (with seed letters and sound syllables like the word OM in the
realms of form) samadhi and nivitarka samadhi
(mindful contemplative healing energy and light received in our souls that
leaves no
mark or seed inside of what the Buddhist's call the form realms).