Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. Do you pray, meditate, or both? Today, we'll briefly chat about the difference between the two and the benefits of each one. It's been said that prayer is when you talk, and meditation is when you listen.
My old therapist never told me what to do in or with my life, for example, she simply helped me navigate through my own thoughts in order to find the answers that were already buried deep within. It's like when someone helps you find the keys to your car. They don't criticize you for losing them, they help you check every drawer in the house and under each cushion of the couch, until you discover they've been in your pocket all along.
Meditation accomplishes this by quieting the mind so we can hear the truth we already know. It's like fine-tuning a radio dial to eliminate the static for a clearer reception. If you think of meditation as an inward journey, prayer is often thought of as an outward expression. Whether you pray to God, Mother Nature, or the Universe at large. A true prayer is one of gratitude for the blessings in our lives, it is not a time
to be greedy or beg for more. This is because we already have everything we need in order to be happy. So even saying: God, please give me strength, for example, implies that we don't already have it when we actually do. simply say: Thank you for the strength,
and you will be empowered to tap into its unlimited supply. Don't even imply that you have somehow been shortchanged in this life because you will actually start believing it, and then you will experience every aspect of your life from a place of lack instead of abundance. By being grateful for what we have, we generate energy towards more of the same. And that's because energy flows where attention goes. It's ill-advised to focus on what's missing, because then you'll wind up with more
of what you don't want. So I say meditate AND pray. Meditate to keep your mind firmly fixed in the right direction, and it will raise your awareness of things to be grateful for in your prayers. A common question I get is: Well, what's the harm in praying for world peace? Well, the problem lies in the idea that it's somehow somebody else's responsibility to make peace happen, when it actually begins with you. If you want to know
how close we are to world peace, look within; look at your own life. If you're having a tough time maintaining inner peace and harmony, it becomes less surprising that we're struggling to do so on a global scale. Start at home. Prayer and meditation are both wonderful. In fact, reciting a prayer is a very common meditation practice. Take the Prayer of Saint Francis for example: Where there is hatred within, train your mind
to sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. And where there is sadness, joy. Do not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, or even to be loved as to love. For it's in giving that we receive it's in pardoning that we are pardoned and it's by letting go of the concept of a separate self that we are born to eternal life.
Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless and Buddhist Boot Camp. For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com, where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project, watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions. Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏