My view: prayer is a kind of thought energy, and it can prompt the natural environment around us to respond. The strength of that thought energy depends on the cultivation of the person praying. As Gao Yueming puts it, “In essence, worshipping the Buddha is not about asking the Buddha for things — it is about asking yourself to create the causes and conditions that bring about the karmic result.” Prayer is thought energy that issues a request for causes and conditions to ripen into results. Take the earthquake in May: during the three minutes of national silence, many people prayed in their hearts for the people in the disaster area. One person’s prayer thought energy may not be much, but the thought energy of 1.3 billion people praying together with good intent can transmit an energy to nature, and that energy can let crustal movement gradually return to stability.