These words not only touched me. They also made me think. “What can I possibly do to help make New York City better?” I ņaturally thought of the goma ceremony and the talk I was planning for the Riverside Church.
Of course. Here was my chance to make some kind of contribution.
|As a man of faith, what I could offer is some thoughts on how to concentrate and intensify our power through prayer and meditation.
There is nothing in the world that is stronger than the power of prayer. And meditation is the skillful tool that guides the power of prayer in the most effective direction.
Our prayers have the power to affect God, to influence Buddha, to move heaven and earth. We need to wholeheartedly turn the collective power of our prayer towards the goal of building world
New York City. And it is still with me as I speak to you now.
The fire ceremony that I conducted a little while ago is called “Gedatsu Goma,” or the fire ceremony of liberation. The one I performed last year was the fire ceremony of the Buddha’s wisdom. Taken together, these two rituals represent the essential core of Buddhism.
The word “liberation” here means release. But what is released? The mind is released. And what is it released from? It is released from all restrictions, from all limitations, from all bondage.
And what is the result of this release?
I think it is the state that the great Greek philosopher Plato is alluding to when he declares that one can only achieve true, fundamental wisdom through the pure selfhood one’s soul attains when it is completely released from all restrictions.
