Transcending Madness Blog, re Prayer and Madness

Pray Tell?   We in the West, at least the United States and perhaps Europe, shy away from the mention of prayer, and rush at such propositions as "leaning into it".  We need that translation, but are the two in any way really any different?  In the same way that Tibetans do not hesitate for a moment to pray, we are enjoined not to hesitate, to "just do it!"  Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche once observed that he was curious about how Westerners shy away from the notion of prayer.  He said he and Tibetans never fail to pray fervently to Guru Rinpoche every single day of their lives. It was, consequently, refreshing to hear Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche use the word prayer.  At first one could think he was kidding, but he followed up immediately with his comment about the power of mantra.   Whether we acknowledge it or not, if we are practicing Vajrayana, and in particular Kye-ri, sadhana practice and mantra, we are devoting ourselves to prayer.  If we have devotion, the expression and experience of that is itself prayer. And if we long for devotion, that in itself is prayer, the invocation of devotion, guru yoga. Perhaps feeling overwhelmed by speed and madness is then the call to prayer, the crest of the wave which will carry the prayer to genuine connection, or recognition.  Such madness short circuits our hesitation. Chaos is extremely good prayer!   Of course we shy away from the mention of "prayer", given our flight from the Western Judeo-Christian notion of prayer, which reinforces the duality of prayer and the prayed to, and all the theistic implications that carries forth.  Yet prayer in the Dharma context, I would suggest, is the opposite (if there can be such thing as "opposite" in the discourse of nonduality)…it is the unhesitating leap into the fervent present moment, it is the inseparability of devotion and the guru's mind, "nowness". "Just do it!" Or, as the Vidyadhara suggested, we don't so much leap, but we find ourselves having leapt. Leap or lean, wherever you find yourself is the razor's edge, the cutting edge of prayer. So why hold back?   -Clarke Warren