Meditations for Cancer

Meditations for Cancer

Date of Advice:
January 2016
Date Posted:
August 2016

A student asked Rinpoche for advice after having a mastectomy and experiencing great physical difficulty while on chemotherapy. Rinpoche recommended meditation on emptiness, tong-len and other practices.

My very dear, precious, kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Please recite the Vajra Cutter Sutra a few times. Also, I will do some prayers and recitations for you now.

Please recite Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s name mantra, thinking that the Buddha is actually there. If you have a thangka or statue, think that the Buddha is actually there. The Buddha sends nectar with much loving kindness and it purifies you completely. All your disease and spirit harm and where all the sickness comes from—delusions and karma—gets purified totally. What has been collected from beginningless rebirths gets completely purified. Recite the name mantra and think this very strongly.

Also, think strongly about the quotations from the Kadampa geshes, such as the quotation that the bad conditions we are experiencing now are like our virtuous friends. Look at it that way, think of it that way.

Then, the next one is “This suffering is a manifestation of emptiness.” Meditate on emptiness. “The I is not truly existent” —that is the meditation.

The next meditation is “It is a dependent arising.” Mainly think about subtle dependent arising, the Prasangika-Madhyamaka view. This means what is “I” is nothing, except for what is merely labeled—what exists in mere name—by the valid mind on the merely labeled aggregates.

You can do other meditations on emptiness that are effective for you, spending a little bit of time on each point. Meditate on how the I exists in mere name, merely labeled by the valid mind on the valid base—the aggregates—that is also merely labeled by the mind. Meditate on that.

You are experiencing this cancer that exists in mere name, merely labeled by the mind. Nothing exists from its own side. No cancer exists from its own side. The object also—the cancer itself—exists in mere name, merely labeled by the valid mind. Think, “What I believe as real cancer does not exist at all from its own side; it’s totally empty from its own side.” Meditate on that.

The other thing is to do tong-len. You have probably already received teachings and advice on this, so you can use the Lama Chöpa verse [v. 95] or Nagarjuna’s verse or other different ways.

This is the best meditation to purify from where cancer comes; to purify the obscurations collected from beginningless rebirths and to collect more than skies of merits. Each time when you take the suffering of others and the causes with compassion and with loving kindness, and then give away your body, possessions, three times’ merit and all the results up to enlightenment, you collect more than skies of merit. Numberless times! Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! That’s very, very good. It makes you achieve enlightenment in the quickest way; it makes you able to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings quicker. It means that it’ll be much faster for you to bring sentient beings to full enlightenment: sang-gye, the cessation of all the obscurations and the completion of all the realizations.

If you can come to India, there is geshe who used to live in Dharamsala called Geshe Tobgye. He is very old and he used to heal many people of cancer by giving mantras. In the meantime, do this practice.

With much love and prayers...