The Ten Directions
When you utter a prayer, it dies. Your breath becomes a voice, the voice becomes a ripple in the air, the ripples spread out and fade into the traceless volume of the atmosphere. Spoken words die, like a body separating into elements: blood and bone, ash and dust, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen.
I am suspicious of prayers that are requests. It seems wrong, in the way of bloody money, to trade corpse-words for something of value. Moreover, it seems a swindle to trade for something that fades away so completely. I know we live under a strange sky where words are invested with something of a magical power — ask and you shall receive — but prayers are not like asking a favor from a friend or neighbor; we do not pray to things with which we ever make eye contact, or shake hands.
I once made up a prayer. I still recite it every day. It goes like this:
“Buddhas of the ten directions, hear my prayer: That my mind may be pure, that my vows may be upheld, that my practice may be true. Let us be as one body, one mind, one vow, one practice, with charity, forbearance, and wisdom, for the good of all beings.”
I know it sounds a little stiff and formal, but that’s okay. It’s something for me to say in the dark. It’s a name for who we become there: swarming others beyond all sight, where the deep paths entangle. It’s a casting aside of teeth and claws: blood runs through us all, we hunger, and we are not afraid.
I made up the prayer one gray spring morning, in the last year of a nightmare love. The raw winds came hard out of the north, and battered the car windows, and I sat behind them for a long time, having no particular reason to get out, nor any particular reason to turn the ignition and drive away. When you are empty space, there is no good reason to move about or do anything, so you don’t.
I’m sure that we fought about something that morning, on the way into town. I have no idea what. I dropped her off at her destination, and I must have said I love you, because I always say that in such situations (for better and for worse), and she must have said something nasty in reply. I have no idea what that was either. I just remember that it really hurt. Honestly, it doesn’t make for a very good story. I think that is the worst part of hurting all the time: there is no story to it. The wounds all run together, and there is nothing heroic or interesting about them. Pain becomes a gray tedium, and there is nothing to tell, because it is all the same. You lay face-down in the puddle of it, and sometimes you drown.
I think I thought to pray because I felt so utterly useless that I could only do something utterly useless. The North and the rain came howling in under the clouds. The Big No-One breathed at the windows. I laid my head down on the steering wheel, and hoped that the police would not drive by and hassle me, or that the airbag would not blow up in my face. Then I closed my eyes, and cleared my throat, and let some words die.
Neither this planet in particular, nor the cosmos in general, has any interest in our health, happiness, or well-being. I know that’s an unpopular view, but I stand by it. I acknowledge that it may be easier to think that we only suffer because The Great Beneficence In the Sky has the occasional oversight, or lapse of judgement. (Everyone makes mistakes, right?) I acknowledge that it might be more subtle to believe that the same Beneficence has planned some lesson for us in suffering, and that we’ll be stronger or richer if we just apply ourselves to learning it. (But is participation really mandatory?) I even acknowledge that maybe we could just blame some bad external agent for causing the whole thing, and mobilize ourselves into a war against tricky devils and cold ghosts and vengeful spirits. (But do you really want to go through life blaming your own problems on someone else, no matter how wicked or ethereal?) I allow that all those alternatives are possible. I just think that it is better to expect nothing in particular, and to take whatever is given.
Every request carries an implied expectation, and so it doesn’t make any real sense to ask for anything, while expecting nothing. As such, I can’t say that it made any particular sense for me to utter a prayer. How do you pray for nothing? More to the point, if the power of a prayer depends on its sincerity, how do you pray for nothing, and still pray with all your heart?
Nothing happened when I uttered the prayer. No angels appeared. No heavens opened up. Nobody came to rap on the window and tell me that things would be okay. I bent over the steering wheel and let the words go silent. I cried a bit.
I sat still and waited, while the words spread out in the air. I felt them leak out of the cracks and the seams in the doors. I heard the wild gray gale of early spring and its low lights carry them away. I picked my head up and watched the wind make its practice: It rattles the eaves and wrinkles the puddles and carries away on its back the clouds and the words that would haunt us.
No one hears prayers. They are not meant to be heard. Prayers dissolve, and become. Impermanence is strong that way; we spread out in every direction, one body, one mind, one vow, one practice, hot to cold, wind to clouds, becoming new breaths, and new voices.
To have your heart ripped out is not so bad. The pain empties you out, and you slowly fill up the world. Things empty out all around us, going hand in hand.
Strangely, I do not remember what else I did that day. It was many years ago. I do not remember whether I started the car and drove away, or whether I got out and went about something else. I don’t remember if I fought, if I ate, if I slept. I only remember those words from that lonely parking spot, where I pulled over, and felt things leave me. I remember the words, and I still say them, when I am alone.
I do not know that the words themselves especially matter. I like the sound of them, but I like the sound of a lot of other things too. To become, and know that I have become, is enough. I am still here. I am alive. The dust of that other self still rings in my ears. I breathe in its prayer. I breathe out my own. We are together, for good.
