When the Cart Doesn't Come

Sooner or later, every one of us chants for something and doesn't get it, and a quiet voice asks what we did wrong. In this episode we answer that question. Chanting for what we want is perfectly fine, and it works, by changing the one who chants. But we're never the only cause at work, and the practice never promised that every condition would bend. We look at the "you didn't chant enough" trap in The Secret, the prosperity gospel and our own benefit-story culture, and at the Buddha's refusal to blame in the Sivaka Sutta, where karma is only one of eight causes of what we feel. Zhiyi and Nichiren carried that refusal forward. When the cart doesn't come, nothing has been proved about us. Read the essay at https://www.twobuddhas.org/post/when-the-cart-doesn-t-come-chanting-unanswered-prayers-and-karma-nichiren-buddhism