The importance of prayers and chanting

Life have stages. That is birth, age, sickness and death. This is Buddha’s insight and teaching. The line of this stage is unclear except the birth and death which is certain. Aging is a process but age can be only a number as each person’s biological age is different from our birth age and sickness can occur anytime. Some life threatening sickness can occur before they are old and some at a much later stage. When is the beginning of old age ? This is very subjective and the feeling is different.

It is a generally accepted rule  that when we get old , sickness will come and death will follow. With advancement in medicine and health supplements, the life expectancy is changing. In the past, the average life span was about 50 in the less developed country and 70 in an advance country and in recent years, it is getting longer and longer. Now, touching 100 years is not an abnormal thing anymore. So, with all these developments, death gets further and further away. If life is not within our expectation, we will let go so easily and we become restless and agitated with our creator. The question of “why me” gets louder and louder inside us.

In order to reduce this stress and pent-up anger and to let go easier, we need to bring in spirituality to unwind the stress and the pain of holding on. Just words may not be effective by if we instill a prayer or chanting, it changes the mental understanding of a person.  If prayers and chants are repeated many times, it forms a part of our thoughts and it changes our outlook in life. It maybe useless in the end but the process of aging and dying is more comfortable  or bearable. Furthermore, the meditative tone of the prayer and chants will help to still the mind or eradicate unnecessary thoughts. The calming feeling can help in pain control and mitigate the side effects arising from pain.

Any simple prayers and chants will help and numerous repetition will change our emotions, our thoughts  and our body –mind condition  and could bring unexpected benefits to our body controls or our sickness.  When our mind is calm, this relax the body and the body can concentrate and focus to repair the damages to our body.  This is a logical deduction and the outcome could be different but one thing is sure, our quality of life will improve.

Namaste.