To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention [...] that he completely forgets his ego,his praying. Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be. The primary task of the school teacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.
(A Certain World, 306)
