The Energy of Prayer: How to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice

By this time I am into the double digits on Thich Nhat Hanh books and do, indeed, feel he is an old friend. Published in 2006, this book is from a compilation of talks given ten years earlier. Many of its themes will be familiar to those who have read other books by him on meditation. In this volume, I found particularly interesting his openness/comparison of Buddhism to other religious practices, including Buddhist and Christian parallels in The Lord's Prayer. The author takes a quite broad view of the subject of prayer, which I find inviting and accessible. This fits with his always encouraging view that a calmer, more contemplative life is available to us all.

I keep this book in my purse. When stress at work is starting to get to me, I take it out and read any page. I breathe deeply, close my eyes and am refreshed.

One of my favorite passages in the New Testament is the story in Mark about the woman who is healed when she touches Jesus' garment. Jesus, walking in a crowd "perceiving in himself that a power had gone forth from him" immediately turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my garments?" I thought of this passage and finally came to understand a little of Jesus' reaction as I read Thich Nhat Hanh's beautiful little book on prayer.Hanh's descriptions of prayer and his examples of praying allowed me to see, maybe for the first time, to experience prayer as energy and to feel its power. How wonderful to realize how this energy connects all being and even more wonderful to know that as human beings we have the ability (and responsibility) to direct the energy (the ground of being) for the good of all. Thich Nhat Hanh's book is practical not in a "how to" sense but in a "practice" sense. May it help you, as it did me, to make the practice of prayer as ordinary, as real, as powerful, as life-giving as . . .breathing.

Thich Nhat Hanh is one of my favorite authors. This book is such an easy read.....I started reading it in the morning and finished it that day! This book will help you have a better understanding about prayer, it can help you improve your own prayer life, and it can help you realize things about prayer that you might not have thought of before. This is excellent! You will be revived and refreshed from reading this. It can definitely help you grow in your prayer life. Prayer is powerful!

The cover photo itself (that of a monk bent in prayer) speaks volumes about the contents of the book - that of prayer, prayer and prayer. In the likeness of books on prayer by Thich Nhat Hanh, this one seeks to uncover the benefits of meditation as prayer. The author proposes many benefits and (if one is to believe) all peoples in the world, regardless of race, language or religion, should allow themselves the benefit to sit in silence, meditating either in silence, with a chant, with words from Scripture, or with concentration on the breath. The latter, when done with full concentration, is able to nourish and to heal the mind, body and spirit. The author provides various exercises on how to meditate using the breath at the end of his book. I believe some of these exercises have been covered in his other books as well. The author quotes from Christian Scripture and even uses the Lord's Prayer - the "Our Father" - in one of his examples on meditative prayer. Really, this is a book not only for Buddhist meditation practitioners but for all seekers of meditation practices. The exercises to still the mind apply to all races, language or religion. If we can all practice the mindfulness that the author writes of, we can apply the practice to our faiths. For example, a Christian could use the ability to stay in tune with silence to meditate on God's Word, or a Buddhist could use this ability to be silent within to concentrate on a chant. The idea is really how one can grow to befriend silence in view of the opposing attacks from the noise of daily living - television, media, people around us, loud music, our fears and worries, the pursuit of desires and wants, the list goes on. I like the book for the solace and comfort and the encouragement it contains. As one who enjoys silence, I could embrace the spiritual benefits of meditation that the author writes about. I wish more people will practise meditation because then the "collective consciousness" (as Thich Nhat Hanh calls it) of the created world can only get better and in turn rub the sense of peace, joy and tranquility to others. Om. Peace.