A student with bipolar disorder asked Rinpoche for advice on practices that could help.
My very dear one,
I checked and it comes out that you should receive ga gön puja, which is giving orders to the deity to look after you. Also for the puja Liberating from the Harm of Nagas and Landlords (lü dang sadag gi don drol) to be done.
This may help you. These pujas are what came out as beneficial for your health.
With much love and prayers ...
A student with bipolar disorder wrote to ask Rinpoche if there was a practice that would be helpful for the illness. The student had long periods of depression alternating with short periods of mania and had to take medication for the rest of his life.
My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am sorry for the many eons of delay replying to you.
I checked regarding your question, and you need to have the Prajnaparamita text—the small, middle and elaborate versions—recited by the monks at Kopan Monastery. You can contact Kopan to request this and see if you can afford it. If you cannot afford it, then ask Kopan if you can join with somebody who requested that puja and have it done together and you can contribute some amount.
It is very important to request the monks—specifically ask the disciplinary monk to announce to the monks—to make strong prayers for you and then to read the text, for you to have a meaningful life, to be most beneficial for sentient beings by actualizing bodhicitta in this lifetime and for you to actualize Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, to be most beneficial to sentient beings all the time—every day, hour, minute and second.
You also need to request Kopan Monastery to read zungdu [Collection of Dharani, a text in the Kangyur] five times.
You need to recite Guhyasamaja root text one day. This is not yet translated into English, so we only have the phonetics, but soon it will be translated. Anyway, you can try to recite this text, as even just trying to recite it leaves positive imprints. Then the next day, recite Chanting the Names of Manjushri. So keep doing this, reciting one of these texts each day.
Reciting the texts, even without understanding, leaves positive imprints if it is done correctly, with a correct motivation, to purify the mind and negative karma and to collect merits, and this brings you to enlightenment.
This is my advice generally for you. It isn’t related to stopping medication but is generally for bipolar.
What makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim and living your life with bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.
With much love and prayers ...
A student wrote about her elderly mother, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had tried to commit suicide four times in the previous two months. Rinpoche gave the student this advice, and also did specific prayers for her mother.
My very dear one,
You should pray very, very strongly to the Medicine Buddha, and recite each of the Seven Medicine Buddhas' names seven times. At the end recite the Medicine Buddha’s mantra then send nectar to her, to yourself and to all sentient beings. Especially send it to her, so it purifies all her defilements and negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths, and especially her depression.
After reciting the mantra, visualize at the end that she becomes Medicine Buddha, who absorbs into her. Of course if you have received Medicine Buddha initiation, then visualize that you become Medicine Buddha. Also all sentient beings—especially your mum—become Medicine Buddha, free from all the sufferings and obscurations.
Pray very strongly to the Medicine Buddha for your mother to recover from this illness immediately. Not just to recover and that’s it, but for her life to become meaningful, to meet the Buddhadharma, especially Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings and follow them. To never ever be reborn in the lower realms and in this life to actualize guru devotion, the three principal aspects of the path, the two stages and then to be able to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. Make this prayer very strongly.
Also recite Vajra Armor for your mother, in particular to pacify all the sufferings and obscurations. You cannot arise as the deity as you don’t have the initiation, but you can visualize the deity in front of you instead.
Do you have the names of the Seven Medicine Buddhas? If not you can find them in English in the Medicine Buddha sadhana. You can also get the names in Tibetan from the middle-length Medicine Buddha puja.
Also, I will pray for her.
With much love and prayers...
[You can find links to these practices in the FPMT Foundation Store.]
A student was having a major bipolar episode and was in a psychiatric hospital. Rinpoche gave this advice.
It’s very important for the Hayagriva Tsog Kong [Extensive Most Secret Hayagriva puja] to be done at Sera Je Monastery.
Request the nuns at Tsum monastic community to recite 10,000 Tara prayers. Express the difficulties so that they can pray for her to have a meaningful long life and actualize the lam-rim.
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a person who was suffering from bipolar disorder and felt suicidal as a result. The student also suffered from chronic back pain.
You should read the Golden Light Sutra every day, however much you can. This is the most precious teaching of the Buddha. As long as this is in the world, we have the teachings of the Buddha. When this is no longer in the world, then the teachings of the Buddha don’t exist in this world.
Reading this purifies all the negative karmas. It causes only good rebirths in future lives. By reading this your life moves only towards enlightenment, not returning to samsara.
You need a blessing protection called ka.go performed for you by a good practitioner. It needs to be done with you present.
You also need a puja called gyab-shi to be performed. I will read this special text by the Buddha to protect from danger of death, sickness, degeneration, and so forth. Five times at least.
It came out most beneficial for you to listen to the Sutra for Entering the City of Vaishali,* for helping with the pain. You must listen to it every time you start to experience pain, unless you want to practice lojong, thought transformation, and utilize it to practice bodhicitta.
The heart of the 84,000 teachings of the Buddha, the Vajra Cutter Sutra, should be read to you nine times.
To achieve enlightenment means to enlighten all suffering sentient beings–this is unbelievable.
[*You can find the audio for this sutra as an MP3 file Recitations for Alleviating Pain. Go to FPMT Catalogue and scroll down to Audio Materials, then click on “Sadhanas, Prayers and Practices.”]
A student who had been diagnosed as bipolar stopped taking her medicine and became manic, destructive, and confused in her thinking. After some time, she fell into a serious depression, and then started taking her medicine again. She asked Rinpoche for practices to help with her condition.
Recite two to three malas of Black Manjushri a day. This will help, and it came out very beneficial for you to practice this.
The other thing that you can do is to recite the sutra taught by the Buddha to Ananda, called Yang pa tong tru do in Tibetan. This is a very powerful sutra. It helps mainly with harm by spirits in villages and towns, where people are harmed, and even the doctors can’t see what the problem is, because they don’t know about harm from spirits. This sutra is very powerful in stopping that.
But, for you, Black Manjushri came out more beneficial. This is also general advice on what can be done for other people who have the same problems and difficulties. Also, they can check with a Lama.
