Why this phrase feels alien to some of us

If you didn’t grow up in a Christian culture (like me), this phrase might feel kind of alien—like a reflex that doesn’t make much sense if you haven’t felt it from the inside. And I think this kind of alienation from unfamiliar language is one of the things that keeps a lot of folks away from the gospel—the good news that Christ has already repented for all of our sins.

A karmic view of perception and experience

So I want to offer a kind of Buddhist lens here—just one of many ways to understand what’s going on when Christians say “praise the Lord.”
Human life revolves around agency and action. Every action you take sows a karmic seed. A good action with good intent brings good fruit. A bad one brings bad fruit. But it’s rarely that simple, because each moment is shaped by layers of past action—some that we remember, and most that we don’t.

According to a Tibetan Buddhist teacher I once studied with in NYC, there are said to be 60 karmic seeds ripening every millisecond. I wouldn’t quote that number too precisely—but the point is, every moment of perception, every sensation, every event you encounter is shaped by your own past karma.
So when something good happens, we often rejoice and take more credit than we should. When something painful happens, we despair and whine more than we need to. But really, we’re just receiving the fruits of past action, moment by moment, in ways we can’t always trace. This is the basis of the Buddhist emphasis on meditative equanimity.

How Jesus flips the script

Here’s where Christ enters the scene.

Jesus came after the Buddha, who had mapped out a powerful individual path of liberation—a path that involved deep personal striving to purify karmic baggage. Jesus, somehow, managed to short-circuit that path. He understood the core logic of animistic traditions, where people offered flesh and blood to powerful spirit beings in exchange for protection. And He flipped that script. He offered His own flesh and blood—not to demand more sacrifice, but to end the need for sacrifice altogether.

He didn’t just show the path—He became the path. Whether or not you know Him, or believe in Him, He took on the karmic debt of the world.

The mystical mechanism of grace

So now, you don’t have to perform rituals or follow a disciplined spiritual routine for lifetimes to attain liberation. You just need to connect with Jesus Christ, even for a moment, and know that He’s already paid the price for your sin. Which is to say that any negative karma fruitioning for you in this present moment gets short-circuited to Jesus Christ’s agony on the cross (if you can remember it), so that you may be free from the present moment burden of it. If you get this, both intellectually and in the present somatic moment, you can’t help but praise the Lord 🥲

Why Christians say it over and over again

Those Christians who are really steeped in that awareness—who are filled with the Holy Spirit and living in that trust—they know it moment by moment. They know that as 60 karmic seeds ripen in them every millisecond, each breath they take is a gift. So they say, “praise the Lord.” Over and over again. Not out of habit, but out of awe.

And honestly, there’s no way to say it enough. You couldn’t say “praise the Lord” 60 times a millisecond, so anything you say is already falling short. But you say it anyway.

The power of vocalized praise

Because speaking it aloud matters. Just like in Hindu practice, where chanting the name of a deity nourishes them in the astral realm—there’s something real about vocalizing truth. It changes you. It aligns you.

So I hope this helps demystify this strange little phrase.

Because it’s actually not unique to Christianity. In Vaishnav Hinduism, there’s a similar understanding—that Vishnu is the Elohim of all Elohims, and that chanting the names of his avatars—Krishna or Rama—can return you to the Godhead. Gandhi died with the words “Hare Rama” on his lips.

Christ in our time

And I don’t know how to prove this, but Jesus Christ seems to be the latest manifestation of God on Earth. Rama and Krishna came earlier, and in this age, it’s Jesus. I could be wrong about that. I hold that in humility. But all my senses—intellectual, somatic, soul—point me to this truth.

Praise the Lord for granting me access to wisdom. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

If this moved something in you, try saying it out loud once today: “Praise the Lord.” See what shifts.