Healers and Healing

I checked what puja is needed and it came out for the extensive Medicine Buddha Puja, composed by the Fifth Dalai Lama, to be done five times by Kopan Nunnery. This came out best, so please tell the nuns at Kopan Nunnery that I asked that they pray hard for your great success in studying Chinese medicine and for you to be most beneficial for sentient beings, not only to heal disease but to purify the cause of disease, so for them to make strong prayers.

Also for you to practice Medicine Buddha. The great Heruka yogi, Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, said from the side of sutra, the most powerful Buddha to pray to for success in these degenerate times is Medicine Buddha. From the side of tantra, the most powerful deity to pray to for success in these degenerate times is Heruka.

Normally I think even mosquitoes, crabs, frogs and ants should recite OM MANI PADME HUM, the Chenrezig mantra, and also Medicine Buddha mantra. Why? Because they want happiness and don’t want suffering, but they don’t have the opportunity, they don’t have a human body or the karma to do this. Of course it doesn’t mean that anyone who has a human body has the opportunity to recite these mantras. Most human beings in this world don’t recite these mantras; they don’t have the karma, the fortune, good luck. It is so sad, so sad, because they don’t know, they have not created good karma in the past, so nothing happens. It is very sad, because they have to experience many problems and their mind always follows negative karma and stops the virtue, even though what they want is only happiness. It is like that, so difficult, an unbelievably sad situation. So we are most unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably fortunate to have met the Buddhadharma in this life while we are human beings.

[It is very sad] if you don’t take opportunity to recite these two practices; it is the most important thing in the life, not only for enlightenment, but even for ordinary things—for success with the ordinary things in this life; very, very, very ordinary things. If somebody is clever, intelligent and has a lot of merit then they must recite these two mantras every day. Don’t renounce that, it is so silly, it’s the worst thing if you have all the opportunity but don’t do it.

So please carry on, the one before. Where I said it’s the worst thing if you don’t do these two, I was just saying this generally, so maybe you are already doing this. Please recite at least these two practices, even if you don’t do other things, at least do Chenrezig and Medicine Buddha, please, please, please.

Especially if you are dealing with medicine and sick people, you have a responsibility, so please do the short Medicine Buddha practice every day. There might be another one, a shorter one, that might come out, but I haven’t got it translated into English, so this is the smallest Medicine Buddha practice. It is very rich, it is the essence of the middle length Medicine Buddha puja that is normally done at centers. There is also the most extensive Medicine Buddha puja that is written by the Fifth Dalai Lama, however, this one is the essence. The essence is reciting their names seven times and the mantra and making requests to them. This is so important, very important, very important, very important, very important, very important. Then at the end, after reciting each name seven times, you can make this request:

May I be able to heal sentient beings, not only their disease but also any sickness and spirit harm, and not only that, but also to heal where that comes from—delusion and karma. Just by seeing the patients, touching the patients, hearing the patients, remembering the patients and talking to the patients, by the patients hearing my voice, my name, so just by that, may their disease, sickness and spirit harm be completely healed and may the cause of this—delusion and karma—be completely purified. This is even before taking the medicine.

May I become wish-fulfilling for the sentient beings. Generally may I become wish-fulfilling for the sentient beings, more than skies filled with wish-granting jewels and wish-granting trees, so more than that, and may I be able to cause high rebirth and ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, the peerless happiness, buddhahood, full enlightenment.

This is what you should pray after reciting each of the Medicine Buddhas name seven times and also at the end during the dedication.

If you can do this practice, wow, wow, wow, that will give you so much power and also wisdom and compassion.

In this line of work (medicine) compassion is the most important thing. In India, where I lived for eight years at a place called Buxa Duar,  I heard that some doctors, just by touching their hand on the patients, just like that, they cured them of their pain, so that was from compassion. It is very important. Even if you are not expert in medicine, in diagnosis, but just have a lot of compassion, people can be healed. Some patients aren’t healed even by wise doctors, those who have studied so much about medicine and diagnosis; the patients don’t recover. However, some doctors who didn’t learn much, but who have so much compassion, they can really help the patients recover immediately. You have to know these things, what is the most important thing, the key thing to have.

Actually what you need, what is most important to benefit and to be most beneficial for sentient beings is to develop compassion, so that means you need  to read lamrim and also Shantideva’s Bodhisattva’s Way of Life and other things that help the lamrim. By developing renunciation then you are able to develop compassion, so that helps you to develop compassion. Also developing realization of the suffering of the lower realms, the devas and human beings, and the general sufferings of samsara, by understanding that, we generate more compassion. When you think of the suffering of others, meditate on that—that is really, really the best thing. It means you have to know Dharma, read lamrim and any other books like The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Nagarjuna’s teachings like Letter to a Friend and so forth.

If you want my advice, this is my suggestion. This is what is most helpful for the people.

For example, Geshe Lama Konchog was at a center and there was one baby that was in the hospital and the doctors had completely decided that the baby was going to die soon. But Geshe Lama Konchog did a few minutes’ puja and that baby completely recovered. Even though Geshe Lama Konchog had not studied extensively about the disease and diagnosis, he just did a few minutes’ puja and the baby recovered. Of course, he had compassion as he is a meditator. There are many stories like this, even though they didn’t learn about medicine or diagnosis, they didn’t go to school and didn’t learn from doctors for many years; they didn’t study medicine.

In the West, doctors don’t know that compassion is the most important thing in their work, in the treatment. Compassion is the most important thing, but they have no idea, they only study medicine and diagnosis. To really know well you need clairvoyance, especially in such degenerate times, the diagnosis of disease changes, it is not the same as before, and then many times there is the danger of giving the wrong medicine. I think in the West people care too much their health, they take so many medicines and sometimes the medicine kills them. This is just my view.

Also, sometimes the medicines are made by companies for profit, to be useful in business, then the companies ask famous doctors to say how this medicine is very good and then they take the doctors for seven days’ holiday in a five-star hotel at a beach resort. I heard these things—that it is just for business, for money. There is no compassion in that. In Tibetan medicine, to learn Tibetan diagnosis and medicine, it is explained that first you need compassion, you need to respect the patients, not to think of them as dirty, as you have to taste their pipi, so in Tibet medicine there is no thought of dirtiness. There are few things to learn at the very, very beginning that are not mentioned in Western medical knowledge, such as being kind to patients. This is explained as it is a very basic, important thing.

Medicine Buddha is very powerful for success. Praying to Medicine Buddha, reciting the seven names of the Buddha and the mantras is so powerful for success. Also not only to have success at being a doctor, but also generally when death happens, so as not to be reborn in the hell realms, as a hungry ghost or in the animal realm and to get a high rebirth, a perfect human rebirth, to meet the Dharma again, to meet a perfectly qualified teacher and by pleasing most, all the time, then to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible, for sentient beings. Or to be born in pure land where you can be enlightened; this is a quick way to free the sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and to bring them to enlightenment. Praying to Medicine Buddha is very powerful for success.

I was asked what puja should be done for the family this year. What came out in the observation was to recite the Golden Light Sutra four times. Maybe this can be discussed at the center; drinks and tea or whatever people need can be offered and then they can read the sutra four times. The pages can be shared. Or request the Sangha in Taipei or Taichung to meet at the center and read the sutra.

The other puja is the Four Mandala Offerings to Tara to be done well. It came out to be done at Drepung Nunnery in south India, There is one nun who is Lama Yeshe’s relative, she is one of the elder ones, who is a teacher and in the first group of nuns to become geshe-mas.

Thank you very much for carving the crystal Padmasambhava mantra, but this is not the normal Padmasambhava mantra. You have to copy from the ones I have given to people before, which is the mantra given by Padmasambhava to put in water that people drink. It purifies the mind, blesses the mind and makes us achieve enlightenment. So please copy from those ones, as it is not the normal Padmasambhava mantra.

With much love and prayers ...

When you practice healing on someone in pain, one method is to visualize the moon syllable OM on your hand. It is white in color and its nature is light.

You should then recite the Most Secret Hayagriva mantra, which you need to memorize:

HRIH VAJRA KRODHA HAYAGRIVA HULU HULU HUM PHAT

While pressing your hand on the painful area, keep reciting this mantra.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one, 
I am very, very happy that you sent me a letter explaining this. My comment is that you must use this power. Kuan Yin is helping you to have this power, so you must use it. You must heal many people from sickness and cancer like you did your Mum, so your life brings benefit to others. You’re completely OK to do this, so you must do it.

Unless there are some people who don’t have the karma to be healed and you get some feeling or prediction not to do it for that particular person, you must do this healing. The purpose of our life is to benefit the most kind, most precious, most dear, wish-fulfilling sentient beings and free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its causes, karma and delusions, and bring them to peerless happiness, full enlightenment.

So please, when I hear someone has cancer, if they can sponsor you, would you mind coming to heal them? That would be so good, that would be fantastic. This is a gift from Kuan Yin to you, because your life is good, you have a good heart and so forth. So it must be in relation to that, to your connection with Kuan Yin.

I would be very happy to receive your letters from time to time, so please write.

With much love and prayer...

PS: Soon I will be going to Nepal to attend the one-month course, and then I will go to India for His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teachings. I will also give teachings and spend some time in India.

Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta day and night.

P.PS: Please, as you are blessed by Kuan Yin, with total faith you should try to heal and help others as much as possible, especially the people around you. Also, I will let you know about anybody who you can help. This is the purpose of our life.

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am sorry it took so long to reply.

Yuthok Yonten Gonpo, a great lama who established the knowledge and lineage of Tibetan medicine, gave this advice from his experience of the benefits of meditating on and reciting the seven Medicine Buddha’s names and the Medicine Buddha mantra for sick people. He said that patients are the great merit field of all the collected merits, and even though there are very extensive and very, very profound means of collecting merit that have been taught by Buddha, there is no comparison with serving someone who is sick.

• If you take seven steps to help one patient, it is the same as circumambulating all the buddhas.
• If you give medicine one time to one patient, it is the same as having made charity to all sentient beings.
• When you fulfill the wishes of one patient, it is equal to having made offerings to all the worthwhile objects.

There are numberless bodhisattvas who totally dedicate their lives to sentient beings, including all the sick people, so even their breathing in and out is only for us sentient beings. They never even take a breath for themselves. It is sentient beings that they pay the most attention to and love and cherish the most; just as a mother cares for her beloved child and cherishes her child the most, even more than buddhas and other sentient beings. Definitely she cherishes her child more than herself. So, for example, if somebody even praises her child a little, it makes the mother so unbelievably happy, or if someone gives the child a present, it makes the mother so happy. Also, if someone criticizes the child even just a little, the mother becomes so upset and hurt.

This is how bodhisattvas regard sentient beings. So, if we give a little harm to sentient beings, bodhisattvas are so sad, and if we give a little help or comfort to sentient beings, bodhisattvas are so happy; this is what makes them most happy. This is just mentioning bodhisattvas, so no question about buddhas. Now there is not just one Buddha, there are numberless buddhas.

Helping one patient by giving medicine or whatever comfort, physical or mental, that you can give; now you can see how this becomes the best offering to all the numberless bodhisattvas and buddhas. You can also see that harming one sentient being, by cheating or killing them and so forth, but then making offerings to Buddha—you can see that really does not please the buddhas.

Giving medicine or any comfort that you can to a patient is the best offering to numberless bodhisattvas and buddhas; it is what makes them so happy. This is not just referring to patients, but to any sentient being. To give comfort or help to any sentient being is the best offering to the buddhas and bodhisattvas.

It is said in the Bodhicaryavatara:

Even the mere thought of benefiting sentient beings
Is higher than making offerings to the buddhas.
Therefore actually attempt to work for sentient beings’ happiness.

Here, there is no need to actually mention medicine specifically; helping in this way is the best offering to numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas. Therefore, cherish your patients and all sentient beings as much as possible, with love and compassion. Helping your patients is so good; it is the best Dharma and such a good practice. As I have mentioned here, it is a way to collect the most merit, the most good fortune and the most good luck. It is really great!

Whatever you do with your body, speech and mind for sentient beings—whether it is giving medicine, food, money or whatever is needed to your patients—then this becomes a very special offering to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. When you help or give offerings to your patients (or another sentient being), you should think that you are offering to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Then it not only becomes charity to your patient or any other sentient beings, but it also becomes an offering to numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas, and numberless holy objects. So it is one action, but it has two benefits.

So it is very good to do your work and live your life with this motivation, then whatever you do becomes cherishing other sentient beings and every action that you do to help them becomes a quick cause of enlightenment.

For example, even though Maitreya Buddha generated bodhicitta earlier than Shakyamuni Buddha, he became enlightened later than Shakyamuni Buddha, because Shakyamuni Buddha’s bodhicitta and compassion towards sentient beings was much stronger. When Maitreya Buddha and Shakyamuni Buddha were in a past life, they were brothers. They were walking and saw a starving tigress with five cubs that were all dying of starvation, but Shakyamuni Buddha could not bear it and came back later to offer his body to the starving tigress. He gave his body, but Maitreya Buddha didn’t do that. This shows that Shakyamuni Buddha’s compassion and bodhicitta was stronger and this is why he attained enlightenment faster. This was due to his strong compassion. So, the stronger the compassion that you can generate to sentient beings, the quicker you will attain enlightenment. This is what it depends on.

You are so fortunate, such a very fortunate person, and it seems you are very sincere, from your letter and what you mentioned.

For your greatest success and so that your actions can benefit others most, it comes out for you to practice Medicine Buddha and especially to recite the Medicine Buddha’s name and mantra. There is a booklet that I put together many years ago with Ven. Gyatso. This booklet is the essence of the Medicine Buddha sutra and the Medicine Buddha puja. This is what you should practice. [Note: this booklet, the Medicine Buddha Sadhana, is available from FPMT Foundation Store.]

Reciting the seven names of the Medicine Buddha is great, so unbelievable. Reciting these names is the same as reciting all the buddhas’ names. Making offerings to the Medicine Buddha is the same as making offerings to all the buddhas. Making prostrations to the Medicine Buddha is the same as making prostrations to all the buddhas. Circumambulating the Medicine Buddha is the same as circumambulating all the buddhas.

If you recite the seven Medicine Buddhas’ names and make prostrations and offerings to the seven Medicine Buddhas, then all the prayers that are mentioned in the sutra become successful.

It is very good if you recite the long mantra of Medicine Buddha 100,000 times, if you can find the time; if not, then recite this mantra 40,000 times. If you can do that, it would be so good. You can do it in retreat, or if it is hard to do strict retreat, then do a session in the morning or twice a day, if you have time, and in this way complete the recitation.

Then study the Middle Lamrim of Lama Tsongkhapa (I can email this to you if you need it). Also study Manjrushri’s Own Words (this is a lamrim text). Then use The Essential Nectar lamrim to meditate on, by following the outlines. Please read the Middle Lamrim from beginning to end three times.

Do effortful meditation on guru devotion for four months, then the graduated path of the lower capable being for one month, the graduated path of the intermediate capable being for five months, then the graduated path of the highest capable being: bodhicitta for two months and emptiness for three months. Keep circling like this, for this length of time until you have stable realizations, effortlessly. So, continue this meditation until you have stable guru devotion realization—not just for a few hours or in one session, but continuously—until from your heart when you think about the guru you see Buddha. The guru reminds you of Buddha; there is Buddha, having ceased all obscurations and mistakes and completed all the qualities. Without effort, 100 per cent you see that from your heart. So, if you don’t have this realization then you must continue to meditate on this, no matter how many months or years it takes, by following the outline. You can use The Essential Nectar, but also read other lamrim commentaries; also by following Manjrushri’s Own Words lamrim outline, whatever is easier.

For daily meditation, use The Essential Nectar. In this way try to have all the realizations of the lamrim. First try to have effortless realizations of the lower capable being’s path; meditate on that to have the realizations of each meditation, step-by-step, no matter how many months or years it takes. Then continue until you have effortless realizations of the middle capable being, then bodhicitta. Once you have realized bodhicitta, then you can do more tantric practice. But you should meditate a little on emptiness every day, even just for five, ten or fifteen minutes. After you have realized bodhicitta, then mainly you can do tantric practice—generation and completion stage. So, this is my main advice for now.

Please find my advice attached for your life practices, what to focus on for your whole life, along with some additional information.

I hope to see you again; life is short and this human life is more precious than skies filled with wish-granting jewels. Try not to waste a second of your life and make your life most beneficial for sentient beings.

So you being a nurse is very good for sentient beings. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am so sorry for the many eons of delay, I had your letter with me for a long time, but wasn’t able to reply.

Besides that book I have also translated a small Medicine Buddha practice, which is really, really good. It is the essence of the Medicine Buddha sutra taught by Buddha and the extensive Medicine Buddha puja by the Fifth Dalai Lama, and the short practice by Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen. This is a small text, but it is very, very powerful, that you can use also.

I am right now making another Medicine Buddha practice, with the longest Medicine Buddha mantra, and some short practice with my own suggestions. I’m trying to do the longest Medicine Buddha mantra and some of the prayers each day. When I finish this I will send to you.

Reciting the Medicine Buddha mantra is so powerful, it is the same as reciting all the buddhas’ mantra. If you circumambulate the Medicine Buddha, you get the same merit as having circumambulated all the buddhas. If you make offerings to Medicine Buddha, you get the same merit as having made offerings to all the buddhas. If you recite the Seven Medicine Buddha names and recite the Medicine Buddha mantra it fulfills all your wishes and prayers. It is so incredibly powerful.

So even if you have not completely recovered but are much better, this is really due to the power of the Medicine Buddha practice.

I was really very happy to receive your letter and hear about your experience. Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta, day and night and in everything you do.

With much love and prayers...