Getting off from the yellow school bus, my 9-year-old niece came rushing into the sitting room and ran straight to her elder sister, saying, “Ma Gyi, Ma Gyi. You know my friend Ni Ni? My friends and I got somewhat a bit shocked at her grandma’s words today at lunch time. Her grandma came to deliver Ni Ni’s lunch box. Over lunch, we were having some sort of conversation and it came to daily prayers. Ni Ni’s grandma told us that God cannot know what each of us wants as the world has been crowded with billions of people. So she said we need to pray particularly for what we want”.
Shwe Wah, my youngest niece of the three siblings talked non-stop. As soon as she finished talking, her high school brother, doing his homework in one corner of the room butted in. He seemed to be a little matured for his age with an intelligent and rational mind, who tends to believe only in scien tific explanations for many things.
“Shwe Wah, you are a fool to believe that. If God makes every wish to be fulfilled, there won’t be any poor people in the world. Everyone would be saying prayers and asking him what he or she wants. That’s ridiculous.”
At this point, the eldest daughter of my brother whom they call Ma Gyi affectionately looked at her sister, Shwe Wah, and said slowly. “It may be true for Ni Ni and her grandma. They have a different faith from ours. They may even have different views from us, Buddhists. In our religion, our Lord Buddha knows everything and there’s no need particularly to ask for thing. And then again, whatever wish you pray for, doesn’t necessarily comes true. It depends entirely on our indivicual karma what you did in your previous lives plus in this life up to this moment.”
From inside my own room, I got to hear all they’ve been talking. Their words let my thoughts wandering away. With more than a dacade’s experience and teaching service as a Senior As sistant Teacher at three State High Schools in three entirely di verse townships across the country and having met with people of all sorts from different socio-economic backgrounds, I think I’d seen the outside world enough for a lifetime. Then, all of a sudden, my mind recalled my discussion with my late mother just before she passed away last year.
Mother and I had been in deep conversation regarding human nature and their immeasurable wants and de sires. She told me “Most people don’t realize how hard it is to be born as a human. Just to survive and continue to live on earth must be taken as a great favour and good luck. Everyone needs to love life as it comes along: Generally for most people, a journey full of inevitable ups and downs. It’s like we are all passengers on a train, ready to get off at our respective destination stations, whether we like it or not. We are human after all and usually we got ourselves tangled up in so many bindings, got caught in the clutches of greed, desires, lust, anger, etc. and had to revolve in the socalled turmoil of society. People tend to for get to do good and wholesome deeds but remember to pray to God and ask things they want. It’s not proper actually”.
“Yes, Mom, What you said is completely true. Some people even go to not one but several Buddha Stupas, saying their prayers at each place. A few of my colleagues mentioned their wishes came true for them.”
“Maybe, for some. I think it’s just coincidence. Timing is right for their luck to bring forth good returns. It all depends on “Karma.’ We, Buddhists, have a strong belief in ‘Karma’ and its subsequent consequences. The focal point in any case is in the timing of the consequences”.
“I fully understand, Mom, The scale and the level of your good wholesome deeds or bad ones will determine the time for effect or consequences. We can accept people asking for something in their prayers in return for their good deeds but many others without doing anything good are still opting for prayers. Those I couldn’t stand at all.”
That day while mother and I were still in deep conversation it was interrupted by a distant relative coming to visit her.
With the passing away of my mother, our whole family broke down and it took several months to get back to the normal state to get used to the daily life without the mother’s figure. My brother had to return to his station soon. At home, I was left with three kids – my nephew and two nieces. Since both their p parents have properly brought them up with love, care and discipline, they are good kids with manners and right attitudes, so-called good-breed, responsible, polite and decent personalities. With two stay-in house maids, I don’t have much to attend to for the household chores nor for the kids.
My own work as a full-time teacher keeps me fully occupied during the week. Only on weekends, I started to feel as if I’ve got nothing specific to put my hands on. This pushed me to browse over my Internet and tried to expand my reading circle. Very soon I found myself addicted to my pastime reading online. In the beginning I looked for some philosophies relating to different faiths and the respective practices of praying and prayers.
At one point, I accidentally chanced upon a Persian Saying that immediately attract my interest.
“I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”
Imagine yourself in the position of the person who cried because he couldn’t even afford to buy a pair of shoes. You would want to put the blame on your poverish condition? On your parents? You might be thinking the world isn’t fair after all! Then you met with the guy with no legs face to face. The sorrowful feeling, the frustrations, the discontent or dissatisfaction, the temptation to argue or quarrel with God everything fell to pieces in shatters. Suddenly may be a new ray of light struck through your body and you feel a real great load to be lifted!.
Here’s someone who has been in a plight far worse than yours!
That Persian saying sounds extremely remarkable. Our human nature is such that most of our thinking center around our “self” and we tend to imagine ourselves the most unlucky and ‘trouble-prone’. Never ever, did we think of others who might be in deeper waters!
Generally, it can be quite acceptable for people to say prayers and ask for some kind of relief, solutions or some strings of hope to grasp in times of adversities and troubles. However, it’d be greatly advisable not just to sit there tight, doing nothing expecting some miracles to happen or some aid package falling from the sky.
A close family friend and practicing Buddhist, who, all throughout his life has been very practical and self-disciplined with own principles once spelled out loud his notable view regarding prayers. He said we should all pray
“not for a lighter load, but for stronger shoulders”.
His ideal seems very practical but I’m not of the opinion that many people would favour it.
Again one of my Christian colleague told me that in their religion, their God usually gives back responses to prayers, giving recognition to everyone who prays. She added that sometimes God’s answer might be ‘No’ and you must accept that ‘No’ to your prayers because God must have other plans in store for you.
One tragic story I came across online also gave me food for thought. A poor young taxi driver, an orphan with no family at all, working hard day-in and day-out for more than (20) years, daily prays to God that he’d like to become a millionaire. Very soon his prayers realized and he received not one million but US$ 1.6 million exactly in compensation for the loss of his two arms and two legs from a big Truck Company. It just happened that the highway Truck hit his taxi, head on, on one night of terrible rains and strong winds. Poor unlucky young man! He got his prayers answered but with a somewhat unbalanced trade-off.
Now my whole perspective on prayers has changed I think. For everyone, life has to go on. Our circle would also be sur rounded by prayers of one thing or another as we all are sure to encounter with unforeseeable life’s bumps and spills all the time. Even though our Lord Buddha knows everything and we don’t necessarily require to express our individual wishes, majority of us would be continuing to say our prayers as if grasping the last straw before drowning.
However, we need to be careful in citing or wording them properly, Perhaps we should follow the example of the prayers of the parents of “Thu-wunna-tha-ma’ in Buddhist literature: “the wish to see their son up and carrying a pot of gold”.
Before that prayers were uttered, ‘Thu-wunna-tha-ma’ has been lying dead from the arrow shot at him, his parents are both blind. By that particular prayer, the blind parents would regain their eyesight, able to see their son well and up, healthy enough to carry the pot of gold! Actually a very artful and complete prayer in itself.
Anyway, that would be an option. In the meantime, we must try to deliver good and wholesome deeds, mentally, verbally as well as physically, thereby improving our karma or fate, like mother has said very often, whatever good we do will definitely bring back good things.
