Wow! What did you think of that man's prayer? Wasn't it wonderful?
Yes, quite wonderful, until he decided to open his mouth and say something.
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A cobbler visited Rabbi Isaac of Ger -
Tell me what to do about morning prayer. My customers are poor men who have only one pair of shoes. I pick up their shoes late in the evening and work on them most of the night. At daybreak, there is still work to be done; otherwise, the men will not have shoes before they go to work. What should I do about the morning prayer?
What have you been doing?
Sometimes, I hurry through the prayer quickly and get back to my work. I feel bad about it. Sometimes, I let the hour of prayer go by, and I feel a sense of loss. Once in a while, as I raise my hammer from the shoes, I can almost hear my heart sigh, "What an unfortunate man I am! I am not able to make morning prayer."
If I were God, I would value that sigh more than when you say the prayers.
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Prayer is so much more than words, though it can include words. "Include" means prayer to be prayer must be before words. Otherwise, words are just words. So, a prayer can become prayer, and prayer can become a prayer.
Dongshan (Chinese Buddhist monk, founder Chaodong School, 807-869) says, "The meaning does not reside in the words." Words carry meaning, while words as words have no meaning. Hence, prayer cannot be just words or principally words, or prayer is not prayer. Yet, we can pray, for we are surrounded by prayer.
Hongzhi (China, Chan Buddhist monk, 1091-1157) says, "Although you are inherently spirited and splendid, still you must go ahead and enact it." This is like saying, "God to be God, must act God." And, "You to be you, you must act you." How does God become God? How do you become you? How prayer becomes prayer.
A tree is a tree by acting itself: a tree being a tree. Treeness expressing itself as this tree, that tree. So, prayer becomes prayer and prayers. The context of a tree is all trees, so with prayer. Prayer never hides in a corner, resides in a book or mouth. Prayer's solitude includes all prayers spoken or unspoken. This is a communal solitude.
The Jewish ancestors, therefore, could sing something Christianity seems to have forgotten or held to be only metaphor. We read, in Psalm 66.4, for example -
All nature worships (or bows before) you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name.
My contention here is metaphor is involved in the psalm. Yet, metaphor for the poet is seeking a way to say what conventional parlance cannot say. A rock by being a rock worships. Each thing worships as a reflection, expression, and extension of the ground, its source. Humans may be the only being in "all nature" that has the capacity not to worship, for humans have the capacity to deny and choose not to enact their nature. Humans can choose not to human, and that is contrary to prayer, to worship, and to praise.
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The many ways of prayer - silence, liturgical prayers, song, dance, poetry, sex, walking, running, laughing ... - is prayer enacting itself. Your prayer is prayer enacting prayer. This can happen with someone not believing in prayer. Trees pray, yet trees may not have any idea of prayer or prayer being prayer. Lack of idea of does not mean lack of. For prayer is not subject to a thought. Your thought of prayer, right now, is not prayer.
Prayer is first a nonlinguistic, nonlocal event. It is and comes from nowhere, manifests, and returns to nowhere. It garbs itself. It seeks connection. Prayer is a plant with leaves and flowers. Prayer is a mouth with song. Prayer is a lover embracing a lover. Prayer is a griever shedding tears.
Does prayer have to go anywhere? That is, does it require an object? No. Prayer can become prayer with an object or without one. Prayer is its own pure subjectivity. The object is part of the prayer enacting prayer, yet prayer can express without an idea or sense of reception. Or the reception can be felt as abstract. Prayer is prayer before creating a shape in union with the mind. Yet, it can be prayer in the flow of that union arising from prayer infusing the mind with an inwardly or outwardly perceived receiver of prayer.
All objects prayer joins are conceptual. Prayer itself is nonconceptual. Yet, prayer is not adverse to it, for prayer has no opposition within itself to express as opposition. Prayer, being without opposition, becomes the basis for the joining of subject and object in intimacy. Thus, a final destination, if we may use that word, for prayer, is bringing the object back into pure subjectivity where there is only a subject, so not even a subject. For without two, one is not.
So, to illustrate. When in silent contemplation, I sometimes sneeze or cough. I used to see such natural happenings as disruption. I would get upset, for I saw meditation as absent of such apparent disruptions. Now, I experience this as part of the flow prayer is. Silence enfolds it all. Many things in your meditation can be meditation - so prayer: coughing, crying, laughing, farting, lustful, jealous, or angry thoughts - in fact, any thoughts - scratching an itch, feeling like you want to jump up and flee from the silence, ... If what arises does so naturally as part of the flow prayer is, it belongs. The enacting is the flow. All becomes prayer enacting itself, for it is not apart from prayer enacting itself.
So, one aspiration for silent contemplation is to develop the capacity of seeing all belongs and respond as though it all belongs - for it does. Still, this likely occurs only after a lot of practice with prayerful silence and sensing deeply the unnaturalness and futility of trying to divide the world into pieces.
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What a relief! Hongzhi, therefore, says, "Roam and play in samādhi." Samadhi is a Sanskrit word referring here to wakeful, relaxed contentment of presence found in or outside formal meditation, or silent contemplation; awareness aware. Here, he speaks of taking the samadhi cultivated in formal meditation into all your life. And, interestingly he uses the words "roam and play." In this, prayer becomes freeing and playful. Playful like a dance or a good, hearty laugh, or a free-flowing with even when the flow does not appear to flow - that, too, can be playful. The flow appearing not to flow is the flow. So, "roam and play" means challenge what you assume should be, willing to see there is no way it should be. Curiosity is playful. So, yes, treating religion, spirituality, or life too seriously is deadening, tying you down so you cannot roam and play. Then, roaming becomes futile fleeing and playing a cheap imitation [for the Wind as a metaphor of true roaming and true playing, see Gospel of John 3.8 in the Christian Scripture].
Prayer, being free, is freeing. Prayer playful, lightens our spirits.
* * *
Thus, prayer can be the cobbler's sigh. The cobbler's sigh is as prayerful as any liturgical prayer or any week in silent meditation.
And the Sage is not opposed to the man praying with words. He knows worded prayers are prayer, too. Yet, he knows prayers sometimes are not prayer. In the praying, rather than just saying, one becomes intimate with the prayer intimately enacting itself. Hence, one is intimately being enacted. In true prayer, one never stands outside prayer. Prayer draws you into itself. Prayer is, therefore, an act of love.
An invitation for reflection: In the Christian Scriptures, Ephesians 6.18, we read, "Pray in the spirit [Greek, pneuma; wind, breath; spirit, or Spirit] always." How might this verse relate to the sharings above?
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(C) brian k. wilcox, 2025
*Sayings of Dongshan and Hongzhi, from Taigen Dan Leighton, Trans.; with Yi Wu Hongzhi. Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi. Rev. Exp. Ed.
