THOUGHTS ON PRAYER By Larry Dossey, M.D. In its simplest form, prayer is an attitude of the heart – a matter of being, not doing. Prayer is communication with the Absolute. When we experience the need to enact this connection, we are praying, whether or not we use words. This definition is deliberately broad. It allows people to define communication any way they see fit. It also invites them to image the Absolute in their own way – including the idea that the Absolute is both transcendent and immanent, “out there” as well as “in here.” Although we ordinarily think silence excludes sound, certain sounds can be helpful, paradoxically, in coming to the Great Silence of which all the major spiritual traditions speak. This is the mystical experience of oneness and unity of all things, that state of emptiness where the recognition of a higher reality can take place. For millennia, many great spiritual traditions have prescribed the repetition of certain sounds that are known to promote the experience of transcendent realities. The ritualistic use of specific chants, prayers, incantations, affirmations, and holy words is truly worldwide. Prayer and religion are often confused, because in all cultures they are interwoven with formal rituals and ceremonies. At its simplest, however, prayer does not require cathedrals, churches, priests, or ministers. But religion can empower prayer, and the need for ritual and ceremony, like the need for prayer, is deeply ingrained in human nature. A key factor in the effectiveness of prayer seems to be love, not the religion that accompanies it. Prayer is and has always been a matter of the heart. Perhaps learning to pray means simply learning to love – deeply and dependably. Both prayer and meditation come from the heart, and there are more similarities than differences between them. Compare, for example, the practice of repeating the name of Jesus or Mary during Christian prayer with the custom of repeating a mantra, a phrase with special meaning, in certain forms of Buddhist prayer. During both of these practices one is filled with a sense of serenity and a connection with something greater – whether greater is conceived of a God, Goddess, Buddha, the Universe, or the Absolute. Prayer can take the form of prayerfulness – an attitude, a state of mind in which we feel a sacred connection with the Absolute. Prayerfulness bypasses the bowed head and the bent knee and all the thees and thous. It exists not just in church but also while mowing the lawn or washing the dishes or driving the kids to soccer practice. Through prayerfulness we can help heal our negative attitudes toward ritualized, formal prayer. In prayerfulness, sacred feelings arise naturally from the depths of our being, like a clear spring surfacing on a mountain slope. Prayerfulness can lead us back, full circle, to prayer, but prayer transformed, prayer that is as spontaneous and natural as the dawn. (Edited from Meaning and Medicine, and Prayer is Good Medicine for Prayer album)