Prayer is a vehicle of desire, and desire is wedded to the deceptive idea of selfhood. The only safe wish is the wish to attain Nibbāna, the wish to strip away all desire and all delusion connected with desire.
When that wish is fulfilled there is nothing left to wish for, and the weary round is over.
And because prayer, whether it is effective or not, does not tend towards the attrition of desire nor to the uprooting of the delusion of self, it has no importance in the Noble Discipline of the Buddha.
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You yourselves must strive, the Buddhas only point the way
Buddha, Dhp 276
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