The Pure Mountain Path

Some people are surprised to learn that many Buddhists pray everyday. But why would they? Buddhists do not pray to a God, but they do have devotional meditation practices which could be compared to praying. Radiating loving-kindness to all living beings is a practice which is believed to benefit those beings.
For example, I may pray that all beings are blessed with happiness. It does not matter if no one else hears this prayer. The important part is that I hear it. If I perform a sincere prayer, this prayer practice helps to build and reinforce compassion within myself. Prayer in Buddhism is not to anyone or anything. It is an expression of a wish.
It is my understanding that the Tibetan word that is generally translated as “prayer” actually means literally “Wish Path.” A wish path is for expressing our intentions to benefit all beings by attaining Buddha-hood, or other enlightened activity.

Those who pray are not calling upon higher powers to affect this for us as much as we are calling upon our own minds to be open to such. Prayers are more for the person that is doing them for the person that is “receiving” them. Prayers can be very powerful, but such power does not come from outside ourselves. It solely comes from inside ourselves, namely from our Buddha-nature.

Of course there is the unknown. Does prayer actually somehow affect outcomes? No one knows for sure if the metta created by prayer somehow results in a favorable outcome. It certainly does not hurt. One thing that is known is that prayer develops compassion within the person doing the praying and that in itself is a reason to pray.