Dear Thunderbolt,

This is what you wrote:

"11 Prittas are very familiar most Myanmars know them by heart. When you are in Myanmar , any part of Myanmar 4:30 a.m in the early morning you will hear nothing but Buddhist Monks saying prayers, through the loud speakers.
They don’t care whether some body is sick or tired or sleeping because of hard work the day before. They don’t who is what, all the Monks was doing is doing a good deed , saying prayers, “ Tayar Yey Aye Tite Kywey “ What are other Monks doing everyday I wonder."

This is my response to your posting regarding Eleven Parittas:

1. First of all if you are a Buddhist, and I think you are a Buddhist, I want to explain what Eleven Parittas are. I think you have a misunderstanding here. These Parittas were handed down from generation to generation for the "protection" of the people. It does not matter who is reciting them. It may be a Buddhist monk or a lay person. It does not matter. The only thing that matters is that they are more effective when the persons who recite them keep the Five Precepts. If they cannot keep all the Five Precepts then they should try to keep as many as possible.

2. Prayers have been known to humanity since the beginning of time. Some people pray to God, to Buddha, to Allah, to Mohamed, to Jesus. They do this because of individual belief. Whether their prayers have been answered or not is another matter. But people do what they believe. Belief systems are very important. They are at the foundation of society. When we pray to Buddha and recite his Nine Noble virtues we know that he cannot hear us. How can he? He has passed away. He is no more. The Buddhists believe he has entered Nivarna. So how can we benefit by reciting his Nine Noble Virtues. Just take one of them. Arahan. Arahan means "he is the person who will not do bad things whether he is alone in public view". When a person says "Arahan" many times he looks to the Buddha as the teacher and tries to get inspiration from his conduct. That is why we do the prayers and that is why we do the "seit badee". So what happens in our minds is very important. Some times the body may be suffering but in times of danger people pray and for that moment at least they get some form of relief.

3. Many people believe in angels, nats and devas. I do not know about you. The parittas are effective because all these holy devas are around all of us. When they hear our prayers they can help. The Buddhists believe that if we invoke the name of the Buddha and ask the devas for help, we really do get help.

There are many more things to discuss about this subject of Parittas and prayers.

I hope you appreciate this sharing of what I know.

I do not know everything, nor do I claim to know eveything.

However, if people allow me to explain, I will share what little I know so that those who do not know may get benefit from it.

And once more thing, Mr. Thunderbolt, I know that all of us reap what we sow. These are the words of Jesus. Buddha also said our karma (good or bad) follows us like a shadow.

Metta,

Km