The Bible says that God gives us what we want when we pray to God heartily. Does Zen practice also help us to obtain what we want?

The Bible says that God gives us what we want when we pray to God heartily. Does Zen practice also help us to obtain what we want?

Zen meditation doesn’t help us to obtain something that we are lacking but helps you us to realise that we are already perfectly blessed with all we need. I think that the Biblical quotation above has the same meaning.

Taking this Biblical phrase literally can evoke or bolster our greed and selfishness rather than control and reduce them. This is degrading God to a biased mundane being that prefers those who are pleasing him to those who are not. To believe in God in this way is not to worship him but to profane him, which is also to debase our dignity.

I’d like to interpret this quotation as ‘We will realise that we already have all we need when we can see clearly who God is’.

©Boo Ahm
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