In spite of the protests of Gotama against attempts to persuade the
gods, this is what most Buddhists in Southern Asia have come to do:
and in Tibet, China, and Japan prayer is multiplied by mechanical
devices, such as prayer-wheels, prayer-cylinders, and prayer-flags--a
degeneration of mysticism into magic, not unknown in some Christian
lands. The human heart is hungry and wants to pray! And even this
religion of enlightenment and of the fixed causality of the universe
has had to find a place for prayer. And Divine Beings have been called
in to answer the aspiration of the heart. Gotama himself is deified:
and folk pray to him in Burma, Siam, and Ceylon: whilst in the other
Buddhist lands they have learnt to love such compassionate beings as
Kwanyin, and Amitābha, Buddha of eternal Light who saves men by his
grace. That there is mercy in heaven is the hope of every man. It is
but a pathetic dream, until we know that the heavens have spoken and
declared that mercy in the Word made Flesh.
"So through the thunder comes a human voice."