He asks: “Would benefit extend to others more effectively by adding them as specific targets in this traditional Buddhist prayer of loving kindness? How has this tradition benefited the world by its practice?” What can Creator tell us?

Adding additional desires or giving them specific descriptions to be included, as with additional specific recipients of largesse, will do nothing meaningful, in actuality, other than helping the one making the gesture feel satisfied they are including meaningful and important outcomes in the list of desires recounted. But the fact remains that this is a solitary exercise because humans have no such power to bring about the events in question except through a direct action of some kind, being a change agent on the world stage through becoming involved and carrying out specific interactions, not just mounting thoughts and ideas of change for the better they would like to see, as a kind of meditative reverie that begins and ends with thoughts alone. While this is disheartening to hear for many, we must be honest and say that all of the would-be prayer power done through the ages, following these kinds of perspectives, have had a minimal influence on the world at large. They only serve to help cultivate a more helpful and generous personal perspective and focus, by teaching a person there are important things beyond the self to consider, and the desire for good things to happen is at least a starting point worth considering and taking seriously. But it is only actions beyond the recitation of a list of desires that can produce a meaningful change. That is so for the physical beings given such teachings, but not for the divine realm who, if invoked, can do far more than humans alone, and that is the unfortunate reality here, that relying on wishful thinking is an enormous missed opportunity to convert desire for something into a meaningful collaboration that would have divine power behind it to make changes for the better in the outer world beyond the self alone.