基督徒

從佛教徒及正教徒的角度來看基督教的祈禱（英文）

Christian prayer seen from the eye of a Buddhist and an orthodox Christian .
Reflection on journal article by Kenneth K. Tanaka; Buddhist-Christian Studies, 2002
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When i read the excellent article of M. K. Tanaka about the subject i was very moved by the profound and unique way he approaches the subject of the prayer. I will only try to contribute some orthodox ideas which are not well known.
So Tanaka describes the prayer of a young girl of about eight. I know such a girl, she is the daughter of my good friend , her name is Mary, her mother has heart problem she can die anytime, she lives with the special device to give pulses in her heart, so what i write is very true, (but i will not write about the mothers disease i will keep as Tanaka mentions, i do not want to think about the real situation) only i increase her age to 12 to be the age of my little friend and also to be the same with the Buddhist girl mentioned next, years old with long brown hair. Wearing a nightgown, she is kneeling next to her bed with her hands clasped and her head bowed, as he says a typical form of the western Christians to the eastern society. Working further with this image, sees this little girl--let's call her Megan-- doing two things in her evening prayer.
One is that she is giving thanks to God for the benefits she has received. She thanks him for her food, clothing, friends, and family. Then, she also makes a request. In this petitionary element of her prayer, she is asking God to make her sick father get well soon. As she does so, her expression turns more serious, and she clasps her hands more firmly and brings them closer to her chest. She then looks up toward the ceiling, expressing her heartfelt wish for her father's early recovery. What is noteworthy is that Megan's prayers are spoken aloud as in a human conversation.
He writes: ‘I wonder first and foremost, what God looks like to her. Is God a male or a female, or neither? I would think that even for her (in this gender-sensitive age), God is still a male. If so, does she see him as an elderly man with a long white beard, holding a cane and sitting in a throne? Next, where does God reside? If he is in heaven, what is heaven like to her? In regards to her father's illness, how does she think God can make her father get well? ’
Then he asks , ’ he same questions about a Buddhist girl "praying" before the Buddha or a Bodhisattva for the same kind of wish? The image that immediately crops up in my mind is of a girl of about twelve and her mother whom I saw at a pa-goda in Rangoon, Burma, a number of years ago. The girl is wearing a large, red fresh flower in her hair and has on traditional apparel. She sits with her mother on a marble floor of a spacious area in front of Buddha images that are several meters in height. She holds a bouquet of flowers held upright between the palms of hands in a gesture of reverence. She sits with her legs folded but thrown out to her side, a style common in her country as well as in Thailand. Her eyes appear closed, and her head is slightly bowed down toward the Buddha images. She stays in that posture for what seems like several minutes; her mother does the same. I don't know, of course, what is going on inside, but she is certainly not meditating.
is an important point to make here, for Buddhists are stereotypically seen to only me-ditate. However, the vast majority of lay Buddhists in Asia primarily "pray" or ex-press them selves devotionally, during which they give thanks but also petition for one thing or another of worldly nature. While panoply of Bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteshvara and Kshitigarbha serve as objects of these earthly petitions in Mahayana Buddhist countries of East Asia, the Shakyamuni Buddha is the primary object of devotion in the Theravada societies of Southeast Asia.
Shakyamuni Buddha, then, is the object of her request. The huge images of the Buddha in his meditation pose sit in front of her. Supposing she too is asking for her father's early recovery from an illness, I wonder what kind of image she holds of the Buddha. Would that image in her mind be the tranquil, meditative Buddha, or the handsome, gallant prince Siddhartha, who boldly went off to seek truth, or the image of some "fatherly figure" from her life experience? More than likely, her image is amorphous, as an amalgamation of the images mentioned above, and more. However way she may conceive of the Buddha, she must feel a satisfying level of comfort with the Buddha for such a deeply personal and devotional act to hold any sense of meaning.
Tanaka points out that , “i believe that the act of Christian prayer entails one quality that is virtually absent in the Buddhist devotional form: an interaction with the ultimate, in other words, God. “
The Christian prayer is a two-way communication, a conversation with God. In con-trast, there is virtually no sense of the Burmese girl having a conversation with the Buddha. To her Buddha may answer her prayers for better crop or physical healing, but I would be very surprised if she expected to interact with Buddha on a personal level, whereby, for example, she experienced a spiritual conversation with him.
She may even barter or negotiate with him, offering to be a "good girl" if only God can cure her father of his illness. God appears more willing to listen to her needs and to respond on an individual basis. God at this level is more like a caring uncle who is willing to listen and talk with her.
But them Tanaka says, Most prayers are not mystical, and it would be going too far to claim mystical experience for ordinary prayer. Like Megan, prayers seek God above and not within. This, in fact, does distinguish Megan's prayer from Buddhist meditation, which most people agree involves some form of "mystical experience.
To the above excellent thoughts which i appreciate a lot and respect, i only would like to contribute some more that the respectable Tanaka probably does not know.
If this girl, Megan is orthodox , the prayer indeed becomes within.
Let me explain this. If the girl is orthodox Christian, she is baptized. She prob-ably gaze at heavens , or some icon of Jesus, let me say an icon, which is made by special rules , the colors the drawings have a very special meaning, a theology in col-or not in words. The icon helps her to defocus from the shapes, and talk to her by the symbols the colors etc, same unspeakable theology.
Yes she does not understand dogmatics etc... but she KNOWS god (from the Christian point of view). because she receives the Holy communion . For her god is not any imagination, an old male, with white beards, or some young man with long hairs (like Jesus in the icon) if you ask her she will never identify any shape. She will be sure that God listen to her, and also and more important than God is inside her. But she can not explain the how. But she has a very strong feeling that gad is her RELATIVE.
She actually speaks to a member of her own family. She is sure for this, because she knows she has the same blood with god, her flesh is God’s flesh. She actually has ....some rights !!!!! but again if you ask her more she cannot express in a ration-al way the concept.
Actually something like that happen in Greece in a mountain which as many monasteries. An non orthodox scholar visited the place and talking with the monks he has surprised to hear that they pray not towards outside, but inside, to their heart and he was more surprised to hear that they see !!! god like an unspeakable, impossible to discribe analytically light, which (very wrongly) considered errors and hallucinations, but his objections become the reason the great theologian Gregory Palamas to express and reformulate the theology of the grace of god.
As Tanaka says, One of the reasons for meditation's disengagement from mun-dane concerns (e.g. Megan's concern for her father's illness) is that they are regarded as the very source of suffering (attachment to a person). This samsaric (cycle of births and deaths) existence needs to be transcended through personal cultivation in which meditation plays a key role. However, such meditation practices with extremely lofty mystical goals were not easily accessible to ordinary Buddhists.
This vacuum has come to be filled with such "devotional practices" as sutra chanting, malting offerings of flowers, lanterns, or food, and "prayers" (e.g. Burmese girl de-scribed above). However, from the mainstream monastic Buddhist view these prac-tices are viewed as secondary or, at best, provisional.
Actually the Christian girl may light a small candle (not in her house -may be will have some fire- but in some church- ) which for her is a small symbol of giving light and melting at the same time. As the candle melts but gives light, my life also is sacrificed to enlighten others. She will also smell the incense, which is a prayer also but a prayer expressed not in words but in fragnace.
All her senses will be stimulated to this communication with God which is outside her and inside her, and nowhere also.
But i very admire what Tanaka says, next.
This verse is taken from the writing of a seventh-century Chinese master, Shan-tao. Since everyone, including children, participates in the sutra chanting at religious ser-vices, far more people than the small number of priests rake part in this "prayer of blessing." A similar but even more popular form of prayer of blessing called the "Golden Chain" (one that was composed in Hawaii in the early part of the twentieth century) is recited at religious services, particularly when youths and young adults are in attendance.
Golden Chain--II
I am a link in the Buddha's golden chain of love that stretches around the world. I must keep my link bright and strong.
I will be kind and gentle to every living being and protect all who are weaker than myself.
I will try to think pure and beautiful thoughts, to say pure and beautiful words, and to do pure and beautiful deeds, knowing on what I do now depends not only my happi-ness, but also that of others.
May every link in the Buddha's golden chain of love become bright and strong, and may we all attain perfect peace.
Particularly the last stanza expresses the Bodhisattva spirit of wishing all beings to realize the ultimate goal of all Buddhists, that is, nirvana or Buddhahood. I personally have regarded this last stanza and the previously cited "verse for merit transference" as my Buddhist prayer for all living beings.
If what I have discussed above can be regarded as "prayers of blessing," what I am about to share can be seen as "prayers of petition,"
on the same order as that of Megan's prayer for her father to get well.
Scholars may regard them as self-serving and, technically, not religious, but I doubt we can easily dismiss them, especially when the "petitioners" are carrying them out within their respective religious framework (God, Buddha, Bodhisattva, etc.) and at formally recognized settings (Buddhist temples, etc.)
The Christian girl if orthodox , has similar feelings. She knows that she is not alone, she does not belong to this particular family. She does not pray only in her house before to go to bed. This everyday prayer is the natural continuation of the prayer and to be more exact, not prayer but life way that she experiences when she goes to the church. And her everyday small prayer is rooted on this. So Saturday night she will prepare , probably she will go to church to confess, to purify herself from her little (may be adorable ) sins which can be horrible if she grows up and they grow up with her also, for example she will mention her fighting with classmates or may be her brother, some sweets probable she ate secretly, but some fears also, which many times come to kids, some nightmeres , that sometimes she does not obey to her parents etc... and the priest, if he is good, he will show to her the most love, he will give good advice, may be some candy also, he will calm her, take out her fears, conflicts, and then give her the forgiveness of the holly spirit. She will feel this, she will be like flying because her pure heart feels the purifying grace of the holy spirit. She will come home, to be prepared for tomorrow. For the liturgy. She will pray for this.
Tommorow she will go to liturgy by her mother. But she knows , that she represents her sick father who probably can not go. She will fell there all the un-iverse. The icons, the songs, all the symbols, the priest dressed as Jesus Christ, will make her to feel that she is really in the kingdom of heavens, not in a place, but in a situation, in a condition that the MANY BECOME ONE. May be she will feel that they are present her dead grandparents which she loved a lot, and cried a lot to their death, but know she knows they are here, she cannot express how, but she feels. Of course she cannot express theologically and intellectually the above, but she feels as any orthodox knows and feels in the liturgy. And finally she will go to receive the holy communion. God will be her source of life. She will not say, oh, god is in this icon here or there. She will say , god is in me and i in god, god is in the others and actually we are one, we are members of each others , because god is in me in the other and i am in all.
Probably you will say , this kid can think so deep? Probably she will no be able to express it well , but yes, this is the feeling. And from my experience , as a priest and spiritual father, kids many times can teach us and have a much more better feel-ing of god than adults. And is not this the chan(zen) enlightment?
And at the end, her mother who also receive the holy communion will wait the priest to finish the liturgy, then they will take him by a taxi probably, to the house to give the holy communion to the sick father.
Here i must point out about the parents. Because for the girl her parents will be not just the biological parents with all the good and bad things may have. She will feel some other kind of relationship. What really unites them is the holy communion.
The source of like is not the food they eat, is god himself. So parents BECOME parents participating to this relationship with god, and providing her the opportunity to be in god and so in gods family.
And the holy communion will identify her with her sick father. The holy communion will make her to feel that she IS HER FATHER from one point of view, that their bodies are the same, ONE BODY, god’s body, but still she is his daughter , only because this is a special way to love him by a unique and not a general way.
My point is that she loves him not accidentally, for example because it happen in this life this man to be her biological father, and in some other life, may be she will be his father and he her daughter. She will be always his daughter , it is a unique relationship. And her present life is not an accidental thing, but a LOVE EVENT. She exists here and now, because of love , not only because of the love of the parents but also because of the participation to the loving community of god, to God’s body.
The more she feels this , the more she becomes ‘empty’ from the self-abide. She feels that love IS the emptiness. So the girl has a point , how to start living, an identity.
She knows that probably her father will die, there is the possibility in the back of her mind but she knows that even painful, the bond i mention before, the bond of love that unites her to her father, will never stop. It is not a 2 way mutual love. I give you an example. If love is like tube connecting 2 people, the orthodox Christian love is a little bit different. The tube in the middle has a junction, in which another tube connects, and this tube is the god. And the fluid that flows in this tube is the source of life.
And finally all people are interconnected with those tubes and the god tubes, actually you cannot distinguish whose is the tube, it is just a network, in is God who is everything to everything. So this love MAKES the life, is the life. And can-not be overcomed by biological death.
Indeed our girl knows that she will see again her father, as she believes the same for the dead grandparents, she will be with them in heavens but she expects also the resurrection, for them who loved to have body, of course much better that what they had, to touch them, kiss them etc... love is not only a feeling but also a bodily experience and activity of the neural networks of the brain!!!!!
The girl grows up not as an individual.
And finally she trusts!. she knows how to trust god , this is her faith. She knows no matter what still love exists, because this is god.
I will continue on this with more details in next articles.