Quote from How Do You Pray?

How Do You Pray? Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists & Other Lovers of Humanity

edited by Celeste Yacoboni, foreword by Mirabai Starr

Monkfish Book Publishing, Rhinebeck, New York, New York     © 2014     288 pp.


Includes contributions from: Brother David Steindl-Rast, Roshi Joan Halifax, Kim Rosen, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Arjuna Ardagh, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, Terry Tempest Williams, Byron Katie, Sharon Gannon, Tessa Bielecki, Huston Smith, Deva Premal & Miten, Joanne Shenandoah, Mirabai Starr, Bede Griffiths, Andrew Harvey, Amit Goswami, and many others.

"Let's start with the definition of prayer, the most classical definition  that you start to learn in Sunday School: 'the lifting up of heart and mind to God.' It is not saying prayers, obviously; it is not even an action doing this or that. It is an attitude, an attitude of lifting up heart and mind to God. So, start the other way around and ask, 'What lifts up your heart and mind? What gives you a lift.' "

             Brother David Steindl-Rast   (p. 2)

"Earth, water, fire, air and space

combine to make this food.

Numberless beings gave their lives and labors

that we may eat.

May we be nourished,

that we may nourish life."

Roshi Joan Halifax, meal blessing from Upaya Zen Center  (p. 6)

"People say to me sometimes, 'How come my prayer isn't being answered?' And I tell them 'You hang up the phone too soon.'  It's necessary to sit for a while and to get the action directive, the marching orders for the day."  Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (p. 12)

"Art is prayer made visible

Music is prayer made audible

Dance is prayer embodied

But the greatest art we practice

Is the art of Compassion

Which is prayer in action and service."

Gina Rose Halpern  (p. 161)

Thank you Holly S. for this lovely gift.

-- submitted by Jennifer Knight

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