Things happen due to past karma. The nature of samsara is suffering, so if you experience problems on behalf of others, they can be free from all problems and their causes. By experiencing problems for other sentient beings, your life will become most beneficial for them. It will be a life of courage and not going down. The most important thing is to be beneficial for sentient beings, for example, experiencing problems for them.
You don’t know who this person you met, the healer, is. He may be a bodhisattva. Also, it is your karma to meet him and come to know this medicine, and it is also the good karma of the people who are sick to get this medicine. The medicine looks like brown coal. You have to put a little of it in your first urine of the day, keep it for three days, then drink it. It becomes very alkaline. Take it for three days and stop for one day; again take it for three days and stop for one day. Do this for 40 days. People with stomach cancer cannot take it, as it is very alkaline.
Student: I tried the medicine on my dog, who appeared to be dying and it got much better after that.
Rinpoche: For animals it is most important to chant mantras—not only saving them, but practicing loving kindness and also giving them food and fearlessness. Chant mantras, especially the five powerful mantras at the time of death; Mitukpa, Maitreya and Medicine Buddha mantras, the Heart Sutra, lam-rim prayers, the Foundation of All Good Qualities and the Three Principal Aspects of the Path. These practices purify the animals’ negative karma and plant the seeds for enlightenment, bringing them to liberation, causing them to have a higher rebirth and not to be reincarnated in a lower rebirth. There is a CD at International Office with all the mantras to recite.
For animals, the Maitreya mantra is the best, most powerful way to never be reborn in the lower realms. Also if you do this with compassion, the spirits will go away. There is a story of a monk who was invited to do puja, but it didn’t work, so a Kadampa lama was asked to come. He tried to do gektor but it didn’t work, so he sat and meditated on compassion, then the spirits stopped their harm and helped instead.
