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Cured of AIDS
In 2003, a 39 year-old Moroccan woman living
in Spain was admitted to hospital with AIDS-related pneumonia
and vomiting during a month-long retreat at Vajrayogini Institute
in France. She had contracted HIV as a 17-year-old heroin
user, but the virus had lain dormant until 1996, when she
began to have bouts of pneumonia. She was treated with multiple-drug
therapy, having to take 20 tablets a day, but her condition
deteriorated to the point where she had a T-cell count of
zero. She stopped the drug therapy after several years, because
she felt that it was too strong for her body.
When she wrote to Rinpoche from the hospital requesting
his advice as to what practices she should do, Rinpoche wrote
her the following letter.
My dear Lina,
Thank you for very much for your kind letter.
It came out good to take Tibetan medicine: Tchen la,
three pills a day for eight weeks; Rinchen Tang juz chenmo,
two pills a week for nine weeks. You should also take a herb
called herma from Solu Khumbu in Nepal. You grind
it into a powder and mix it with butter. You can spread it
on bread like jam and eat it three times a day. You can also
put herma in soup. Herma is very good for AIDS.
You should also recite the Padmasambhava mantra. Visualize
Padmasambhava in front of you: nectar flows from his heart
and enters your body and mind, it purifies all diseases, harm
from spirits, negative karmas, and defilements. Perform a
strong visualization and think that the AIDS is gone. With
the last mala, think that you receive all the perfect qualities
of Padmasambhava, especially perfect wisdom, compassion, and
power. You should recite at least four malas a day.
You should also perform Medicine Buddha practice. Use the
sadhana from the small booklet, the one where you visualize
the deities on your crown.
You should also perform the White Tara long life meditation.
There is a short sadhana from Pabongka Rinpoche.
Your everyday practice, whether you have AIDS or not, is
to practice Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, to have realizations
of the lam rim.
With much love and prayers...
Rinpoche also sent her a practice sheet, advising her
to perform the following practices (with the added advice,
“Don’t panic, this is for life.”): 40,000
Vajrasattva mantras; 100,000 water bowl offerings; 100,000
migtsema recitations; 50 recitations of the Diamond Cutter
Sutra; lam rim meditation; and deity practices.
Lina took the Tibetan medicine and used the herma for
two months, mixing it into juice. She also recited the Diamond
Cutter Sutra 50 times and began daily practices of offering
100 water bowls, reciting four malas of the Padmasambhava
mantra, reciting Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga and migtsemas,
and lam rim meditation. After beginning these practices, she
had several powerful dreams of Rinpoche, all indicating that
she was being guided and healed.
Six months later, when she went to her doctor for a
checkup, the HIV virus was not detectable, and her T-cell
count was 300. Her doctor said that she no longer needed to
take any medicine.
When she wrote to Rinpoche to inform him of her recovery,
Rinpoche wrote her the following letter.
March 2004,
My very dear Lina,
Thank you very much for you kind letter and gifts. I am extremely
happy to hear that your AIDS is completely gone. That is extremely
good, because human life is so precious and you only achieved
this human rebirth through pure moral conduct in the past,
that is the cause. So, now you have this precious human life,
which is unbelievable, much more precious than a wish-fulfilling
jewel. It is like a dream, a miracle—such a precious
human rebirth qualified with ten richnesses and eight freedoms,
so that you can practice Dharma whenever you wish. You can
practice the Lesser Vehicle path to achieve liberation from
samsara; the Paramitayana path to achieve everlasting happiness,
freedom forever from samsara; the Bodhisattva path, which
enables one to achieve full enlightenment and to enlighten
numberless sentient beings and liberate them from the oceans
of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment; and
then the Tantric path, which allows you to help others to
achieve enlightenment more quickly. So, this is most important
reason to have a long life and precious human rebirth. Now,
every day, you can plant the seed of the whole path to enlightenment;
that is the reason for having a long life—it gives you
the opportunity to actualize the path, or at least to leave
imprints in your mind of the whole path to enlightenment.
This will create the causes for you to achieve enlightenment,
so that you can benefit others and bring them to enlightenment.
So, now you must spend the rest of your life practicing
Dharma.
Any time that you want to write please do.
With much love and prayers...
[One year later, she remained healthy.]
HIV
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student
who wrote saying he had HIV and asking what practice he could
do to stop the virus.
My very dear James,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Sorry for the long
delay in replying. According to my observation, these are
the practices that are very good for your health:
1) Chenrezig meditation and reciting 700,000 Om Mani
Padme Hung mantras, visualizing beams of nectar emanating
from Chenrezig, entering your body and mind, purifying all
your sickness. Think that all your sickness leaves you in
the form of pus and blood, any harms from spirits come out
in the form of snakes and scorpions, then the cause of your
sickness—which is negative karma and defilement—comes
out in the form of dirty liquid. With strong faith visualize
in this way. After each mala think that you are completely
purified. Then, again perform the visualization.
2) Eight Medicine Buddha pujas—you can ask the Lama
Gyupas to this do at Kopan Monastery.
3) Take the Eight Mahayana Precepts at least nine days each
month. First, you need to receive the lineage of this practice
from Geshe Jampa Gyatso, Geshe Tenpa, or Tulku Gyatso. This
practice makes your life very pure. Morality is very important
for healing.
4) Do the Healing Buddha practice (there is a small booklet
containing this).
5) Recite at least one mala a day of Medicine Buddha mantra.
6) Recite Medicine Buddha’s name mantra. This is very
important not only for healing but fulfilling all your wishes.
7) Recite Buddha Amitayus’s long life mantra, at least
seven long mantras a day. This is very powerful for your long
life and also to purify negative karma and defilements.
These practices are not only to stop this life’s disease
but are also for purification, which is very important. The
disease is the result of negative karma, so it is important
to purify negative karma collected not only in this life,
but in past lives from beginningless time. All kinds of karmic
seeds have been planted, and when conditions come together,
then they grow. It is like plants—when the conditions
of soil and water come together, then the plant grows. We
have so many various karmas imprinted on our mental continuum,
good karma and negative karma, mostly negative karma, and
as they ripen then we experience the result, such as HIV or
other problems. You have not experienced in this life all
the imprints that you have planted in your mind in the past.
Because we want happiness and do not want suffering, we
must purify the cause of suffering that we have created from
beginningless rebirths. This can only be purified by Dharma
practice and purification practices. Therefore, these practices
are essential in one’s life, the most important thing
not only for this life’s happiness but for future lives’
happiness and ultimate happiness. Ultimate happiness involves
total liberation from all sufferings and their causes and
great liberation—full enlightenment.
When death comes even one’s body disintegrates but
one’s consciousness doesn’t, it continues. One’s
consciousness always migrates and there are only two ways
for it to migrate:
1) To the lower realms as a hell being, hungry ghost, or
animal. The hell realm has the most unbearable suffering,
which does not compare to any suffering experienced in the
human realm. Even the heaviest suffering experienced in the
human realm is incredible peace and joy compared to the suffering
in the hell realms, hungry ghost, and animal realms.
2) To the upper realms as a human being, sura being, or
asura being. To be born in any of these realms comes from
good karma. All happiness comes from good karma, including
liberation from samsara, ultimate liberation, enlightenment,
and being able to liberate sentient beings from samsaric sufferings
and bring them to enlightenment.
So, where one reincarnates after death depends on karma.
Practice everyday to abandon the cause of suffering and
to practice the cause of happiness. By this one achieves happiness—temporary
happiness and ultimate happiness. Taking the Eight Mahayana
precepts is the key practice for improving one’s life
up until full enlightenment. So, please do the practices as
I have mentioned, otherwise my advice to you will be wasted.
There was a woman in Spain who completely recovered from
AIDS through practicing. Some of her practices were preliminary
practices and some were practices specifically for AIDS. She
also took Tibetan medicine. By following this she completely
recovered.
There was also a Chinese student who had AIDS. He received
instructions from his guru, a very high lama in Dharamsala.
The lama gave him some advice about doing bodhicitta practice—taking
on other sentient beings' sufferings and giving one's happiness
and merit to others. This is a very important bodhicitta practice
of renouncing oneself and cherishing others. The student did
this practice for four days. Then he went to the hospital
and they could not find the AIDS virus any more. I asked him
how long he had practiced each time and he said that he had
practiced for only a few minutes. Even though the duration
of his sessions was very short, his compassion was unbelievably
strong. Every time he did this meditation, he cried a lot.
It made him cry just thinking about others' suffering. During
this time, he did not have a single thought of his own suffering;
his only concern was for others. Because his compassion for
others was so strong, this purified so much of his negative
karma, including the cause for AIDS. That is why after four
days the doctors could not find the virus.
I would also like to give you some heart advice. You have
to realize that not having HIV doesn’t mean you will
live forever. There is a very important meditation called
meditation on the nature of life, impermanence, and death.
By meditating on this you are able to free yourself from the
negative emotional mind, anger, dissatisfaction, ignorance,
anger, and desire, which is where all the problems and suffering
come from in one’s life, as well as all the sufferings
and problems in future lives and since beginningless rebirths.
This is also where all the sufferings in the hell realms come
from, as well as all the sufferings in the preta realm, animal
realm, and human realm.
This life is very short; you never know when you will die.
There are many more conditions for death than for life. There
are so many ways death can occur, not only in wars and natural
disasters, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, but also conditions
that are normally propitious for life can cause death, such
as medicine and shelter. Even things that are designed for
happiness can become the cause of death. Life is full of conditions
for death. Considering this, it is totally amazing that we
are still alive and have still. So many people who are the
same age as us, born on the same day, have already died a
long time ago. Some may have achieved a good rebirth, but
mostly they have already been reborn in the hell realms, hungry
ghost realm, or animal realm. It is not easy to be reborn
as a human being (a happy migratory being). The cause to be
reborn as a happy migratory being is having lived a pure life
with morality. If one does not practice morality then one
won’t achieve the body of a happy migratory being or
happy rebirth, or as a human in the southern continent (there
are other continents with humans). It is only in the southern
continent that one can meet the Dharma and have the opportunity
to practice the Dharma to complete the realizations and achieve
full enlightenment. It is only in this human body, in this
continent, that you can do this. Now you can see how precious
it is. We don’t have much time left to practice, we
are already adults. We spend more than half our life sleeping.
So, you can see how this is an emergency. We only have this
opportunity now to practice. The most important practice to
make our life better is to practice a good heart, loving kindness,
compassion, the thought of benefiting others and living one’s
life with that thought, having a good heart toward every living
being, and doing works to free them from suffering and bring
them to happiness, not just temporary happiness but ultimate
happiness, liberation from samsara, and full enlightenment.
You can see that there is no choice—we must practice
Dharma now.
With much love and prayers...
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