(August 4, 2021 at 12:15 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: They clearly don't want to end atheism, or they'd do something other than pray. People who pray know better than people who don't how ineffective prayer is.
This reminds me of a time I went to a Nichiren Buddhist meeting. I was instructed to concentrate on something I wanted, like a job, new car, affections of a woman... and via the chanting of "Nam myoho renge kyo" such things would be manifested.
The Nichirens are very unlike other Buddhists, who might reject a focus on materiality or contingency as being against the spirit of the Four Noble Truths. They are also a bit evangelical and culty.
So this woman spent a good half hour going over literature with me and telling me all about how to "manifest my desires." And she was really selling me up on it. At this point I was really regretting going to the meeting but (out of politeness, I didn't up and leave). An old couple I'd met talked me into going, and I was interested in Buddhism at the time. So I went.
Anyway, the cult leadership had determined that the topic for everyone to discuss that evening was "things not being manifested" and how to cope. After all the salesmanship practiced by the one woman at the start, she probably wanted to crawl under a rock when half the people there said that they couldn't manifest ANYTHING as of late.
