Comparing Buddhist Meditation And Patditic Prayer: Meditation And Prayer

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” (Albert Einstein). By drawing similarities and appreciating the differences of the way others see the world, humans are able to better understand and respect one another. Having more respect and understanding between people can lead to more communication between one another and therefore better cooperation. Improving understanding can lead to many improvements in the ways humans interact on a day to day basis and on a larger scale like one country with another country. In a comparison involving people’s beliefs, respect and acceptance have to be held in order to better understand one another. While comparing Buddhist meditation and Catholic prayer by identifying what

This is seen in the way Buddhists may pray on their own or with others, with a prayer wheel or without one, in different locations, there is not one way to meditate. This can also be seen in the way Catholics will pray, it could be formal or informal, using a rosary or without one, with a lot of movement or just standing still, in the same way there are many different types of meditation, there are also different types of prayer. Both meditation and prayer ask the person carrying out the action to look inside themselves to discover something (accesstoinsight.org). Meditation and prayer are very similar, sometimes the words are even used to describe one another. The way the two prompt the person practicing it to look inside of oneself to search for something is very challenging and can pose a serious difficulty to those who are attempting to reach Nirvana or have a conversation with God. The last thing someone wants to do is to look inside of themselves, at all of the good and the bad. Often times humans are too scared to even acknowledge the idea of looking into oneself, much less explore

The ultimate goal of prayer is to form a relationship with God by speaking to Him. Specifically prayer is defined as, “...the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church). Meditation and prayer both deal with the mind and overcoming suffering. While prayer focuses on relieving suffering with the help of God, meditation focuses on trying to relieve one’s own suffering by finding a quiet inside of oneself (accesstoinsight.org, vatican.va). Finding quiet inside of oneself is expressed especially well by Deepak Chopra when he mentions, “Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there ― buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.”. This is expressed especially well and is easy to relate to because many people spend the majority of their day planning it rather than living it. This is similar to finding God inside of oneself, buried in the same way under all of the thoughts, once the unnecessary thoughts are removed, only the ones that are needed are left and God is among those