Saturday, October 27
DISCOURSE BEFORE MEDICINE BUDDHA PREPARATION

THE SOLUTION IS LAM-RIM

The reason we have to get out of samsara is that other sentient beings are suffering in samsara, and we need to help them, to liberate them from the oceans of samsaric suffering. Of course, that’s what we normally talk about and what we’re supposed to think, particularly after having met Mahayana Buddhism. But there is now an even stronger reason that we have to practice Dharma and do this retreat. What is it? We can see the reason on the world news these days. Especially because of the present situation, we have even stronger reasons to practice Dharma. Doing retreat is the only way; it’s the real solution. But not just doing any retreat, not just doing a retreat where we watch our breath or our belly moving in and out or where we walk and think, “I’m walking,” or where we think, “I’m breathing,” “I’m touching,” “I’m eating,” “I’m sleeping” or “I’m dreaming.” This is not a retreat where we have just the awareness, “I’m stealing” or “I’m killing.” Anyway, I’m joking about this.

Here it’s a retreat on lam-rim, on tantric deity practice based on lam-rim. This is the most important retreat. The only way you can do deity practice perfectly, the only way you can make it a pure, real retreat, is by practicing lam-rim. It is only then that a deity retreat becomes pure and correct. Otherwise, without lam-rim, it doesn’t become even Dharma. The very first thing is to make the retreat become Dharma. Without lam-rim, it’s difficult for meditation on a deity to become even Dharma, so there’s no doubt that it won’t become a cause to achieve liberation or enlightenment. There’s no way for that to happen.

The solution is lam-rim. If we don’t want to suffer ourselves and we don’t want others to suffer, the ultimate solution is lam-rim, the foundation of which is the four noble truths. Of course, bodhicitta is the most precious thing we can meditate on in our life. After meeting Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, we have this most precious opportunity to meditate on bodhicitta. As Shantideva mentions in the first chapter of A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, which praises bodhicitta, after we have taken this impure body, it becomes the priceless holy body of the Victorious One, or Buddha.1 We have taken a body that is only suffering in nature. It is like a garbage can or a septic tank. As Nagarjuna explains in Letter to a Friend, it is the container of thirty-two impurities. All the dirty things that come out from the lower and upper doors are regarded as things to throw away. That shows that the body is suffering in nature and filled with impurities. Before we eat food it’s clean, but after it has gone inside our body, it’s dirty, and nobody wants to eat what comes out. It is this body that makes clean food dirty.

Kunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen Rinpoche used to say that before you eat food, it is clean; after you eat it, if you then vomit it up, nobody can eat what you have vomited. It’s regarded as dirty. Kunu Lama Rinpoche is the great bodhisattva from whom His Holiness the Dalai Lama received commentary on A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life in the Tibetan temple in Bodhgaya. In the early times there were only the Gelugpa monastery and the Thai temple, but now there are many monasteries in Bodhgaya.

After having taken such a suffering body, you can transform it into the vajra holy body of a buddha, which is totally free from suffering. This is priceless. What enables you to achieve this complete transformation is the lam-rim, especially bodhicitta. That’s why practicing bodhicitta is emphasized there by Shantideva. It’s not that you think about bodhicitta just from time to time. You must have the realization and stabilize that realization.

Every day on the TV news you hear about so much violence not only in Afghanistan but in many other places. There is more and more violence, so much killing. All the TV news programs talk about so much killing, torture, poverty and other sufferings in the world. These days especially it has increased. So, it has all to do with the mind. It has all come from the mind, from the unsubdued, or untamed, mind. These problems don’t come from outside; they come from the untamed mind, from the delusions.

I’ve been feeling more and more that the real solution for world peace is meditation centers doing retreats and practices, including lay people taking the lay precepts and the Eight Mahayana Precepts and ordained people living in their vows. The real solution for world peace starts with you, with your stopping giving harm to others and giving them peace. The numberless sentient beings in the world then receive peace and happiness from you. It comes from looking after your own mind, from taming your own mind with these various most precious practices. As long as there’s delusion, as long as there’s ego, others can harm you and you can harm others. So, the solution is to get rid of your delusions. Otherwise, there’s always the danger that you will harm others and also receive harm from others.

You can now see that Dharma practice, lam-rim practice, is the only way. On the basis of guru devotion, you have to realize renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness; you have to actualize the path to liberation, to enlightenment. It’s the only way. This is the ultimate solution. This is how we can end the suffering of ourselves and of other sentient beings, including all the terrorists. Actually, when we are practicing Dharma, our delusions are the terrorists; our ego is the terrorist destroying us. Our negative thoughts, our afflicted minds, our disturbing thoughts, our self-cherishing—these terrorists are destroying us. These terrorists don’t give us any peace and destroy our merit, the cause of our happiness. When we do retreat, when we practice Dharma, at that time we’re overcoming the terrorists within our mind. Also, we then don’t become terrorists. By following our delusions, we allow ourselves to become terrorists. By following the terrorist delusions, like blowing up the Twin Towers, we blow up our enlightenment, we blow up our liberation and we blow up all the happiness of our future lives. In that way we blow up all our peace of mind.

When we practice Dharma in our daily life and when we do retreat, we abandon the delusions. We separate ourselves from the delusions; we don’t follow our delusions. If we follow our delusions, it doesn’t become Dharma. The moment we stop following our delusions, whatever we’re doing can become Dharma. Whether we’re walking, eating or even going to the toilet, the moment we stop following delusion we’re practicing Dharma. That is pure Dharma, real Dharma. Doing retreat means retreating from delusion. That is the real meaning of retreat. I’m not going to mention the details of the retreat at this time, but that’s the essence of retreat.

We’re then gradually able to actualize the path and overcome our delusions, and we’re then able to make it impossible for delusion to arise again by ceasing the seed of delusion, which is in the nature of an imprint. That’s how we achieve everlasting happiness, with cessation of all suffering and its causes. By developing the path still further, we then cease even the subtle faults of the mind, the subtle imprints left by ignorance, the concept of inherent existence, and achieve full enlightenment.

The practice of Dharma comes in two points: stopping giving harm to others and benefiting others. The entire 84,000 teachings of the Buddha are integrated into the lam-rim. By actualizing the graduated paths of the beings of lower and middling capability, we stop giving harm to others. This happens by actualizing these two lam-rim paths. By actualizing the graduated path of the being of higher capability, we then benefit other sentient beings. By having the realization of bodhicitta and performing the six bodhisattva deeds, or paramitas, we benefit other sentient beings. To really cover everything—not harming others and benefiting them—we need to actualize the whole path to enlightenment.

That’s why I said that the daily practice we do and things such as this retreat are the real solutions for the peace and happiness of the world and of other sentient beings. It’s the best prayer. It’s everything.

We collect skies of merit when we begin the practice by generating bodhicitta. We collect skies of merit during the practice by practicing the seven limbs. We collect so many skies of merit by rejoicing and by doing meditation on emptiness. We collect skies of merit at the beginning of the session and in the middle of the session, and at the end of the session we dedicate all the skies of merits we have collected so many times in that one session to the well-being of all sentient beings, especially to their success in solving their financial problems. So many people not only in the United States but also in the Middle East, Europe and everywhere else are losing their jobs. Even banks and insurance companies are collapsing. Many of the big airlines have had to pack up, and I don’t mean pack up a suitcase. People are suffering so much. Many people have lost their jobs and now can’t take care of their families. This is happening everywhere. People are having a hard time. And this is besides what’s happening in Afghanistan.

Here, now, we have the chance to create unmistaken causes of happiness. Dharma is not simply up to what we believe. It’s not just believing that if you jump into a fire you will achieve liberation or that if you go to war, God will take care of you and you will go to heaven. What we’re doing here is not simply up to belief. It’s valid. What we believe and practice is valid. It is something that exists, something that we can practice and actualize. It’s a path that was actualized not only by Guru Shakyamuni Buddha himself but even by the buddhas before him. Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of the present Buddhadharma, actualized this path. Like stars at night, countless pandits and yogis also actualized this path, and right at this present moment meditators are actualizing this path. After the Buddha, so many other beings actualized the path and achieved enlightenment as Buddha had explained. They all had the same experiences, and even now many meditators are having those experiences. Even among Western students doing meditation, you can see people having experiences. It is proved to your mind through your own practice. If you meditate correctly, you can see that you get some experience, if not the actual realization then something close to it. Some experience of renunciation, bodhicitta or emptiness happens. Even if you don’t realize renunciation, bodhicitta or emptiness, you can see that it’s a hundred percent true. You see that the inherent existence you believed in before is totally false. Through meditation and through the blessing of the guru, which comes through strong guru devotion and strong purification and collecting of merits, you’re able to see that the teachings are correct. Through analysis, you discover that what you believed before is false, totally false. What the teachings say is proved to you.

It’s not that Buddhists simply have blind faith in what they practice. In many other religions, however, people spend their whole lives practicing with blind faith. You can see that that’s the suffering of wrong view. That obscuration of mind is very heavy suffering and very difficult to overcome. It’s not like having a sickness for which you can take some medicine and recover. Those wrong views, those hallucinations, are very difficult to recognize and to cease. It happens only through lam-rim practice.

A LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH

Recently I thought to offer my ideas to President Bush. They were just my suggestions, but if there were some benefit, it would be good. When this war started I wrote a letter to George Bush. It became many pages long, but the essence of what I was trying to say is that all these problems with the terrorists happened because of a lack of clairvoyance. You need clairvoyance so that you can see what’s going to happen. You can then protect the country from terrorists and all this trouble. The problems happened because of a lack of development of the mind. You need to develop the power of mind beyond the normal capacity of ordinary people so that you can see such things. You can then protect the country, and all those thousands of people wouldn’t have had to die. You can also protect the whole world, and all the economic problems, with people all over the world losing their businesses and jobs, wouldn’t have had to happen.

I’m not sure how my advice appeared, but I just thought to bring up the issue of the need to develop the power of the mind.

Also, at the end, I said that all these problems with terrorists are due to the untamed mind, to wrong views and negative emotional thoughts. I made the suggestion that the whole country, and the whole world, put effort into education in compassion. There should be special education in compassion in schools, so that children generate the good heart, the thought of benefiting others. Just as many countries support each other in a war and other activities, here everybody should put effort into together bringing this special education into the schools in their own country. There should be special education that emphasizes the good heart in schools, and at home parents should also teach this to their children and practice it themselves, becoming examples to their children. Children should learn this at school and also at home.

Each child will then grow up with a good heart, patience and universal responsibility, feeling, “I’m responsible for freeing others from suffering and bringing them happiness.” When they grow up in this way, that child will bring so much peace to their parents and to the rest of their family. When that child then becomes a father or mother, they will be able to educate their own children by being an inspiring example. Their grandchildren will then practice in the same way. They will have a good life, a happy life. They will grow up with inner peace and satisfaction, rather than with anger, egotism and other negative emotional thoughts. Instead of dark lives, those children will have lives filled with light. They will grow up with love, compassion and wisdom inside them. They will then educate their own children in the same way, and it will go on and on in this way. The benefit of educating one child goes on from generation to generation. That one child will stop giving harm to other sentient beings and will benefit others. This is what they will practice in daily life. It is not that this benefit will happen only here in the United States or whichever other country the child is in. The rest of the world won’t receive harm from that person, and on top of that will receive benefit from them. That person will bring so much peace and happiness to the rest of the world and to all sentient beings.

The opposite of this is when one influential person in the world, because of lack of the good heart, tortures and kills many millions of people. At different times, because of their lack of good heart, various highly influential and powerful people have done this to millions of people. This is without talking about all the animals and insects in the ground and in the water that are killed during a war.

For example, if Osama bin Laden had practiced the good heart, there’s no way that the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center would have happened. That wouldn’t have happened, and all the big airlines wouldn’t have lost so much business, the many hotels everywhere wouldn’t have had to close down, and so many people wouldn’t have had to lose their jobs. There wouldn’t have been these problems all over the world. If bin Laden, this one person, had practiced the good heart, all those many thousands of people wouldn’t have had to suffer. You can see how all this came from one person’s anger. It happened because one person didn’t practice patience, didn’t practice the good heart. Osama bin Laden himself is a very thin person with a beard; he’s not gigantic like a mountain. But his mind-power has brought unbelievable harm. Mind-power can destroy the world.

It would be so good if what I emphasized at the end of the letter, the idea of special education in compassion, could be introduced. While I’ve been watching the news on TV, I have heard compassion mentioned only two times. I think Bush mentioned compassion in America once, and I’ve forgotten the other time. You hardly ever hear compassion mentioned in the news. In all the other news I haven’t heard any mention of compassion.

The other point I tried to mention in the letter is that there are other ways to solve the problem. This problem can be solved through spiritual practice. You don’t have to harm others. War has side-effects. Even if you defeat your enemy, it’s only temporary; sooner or later they will retaliate or other people will attack you. The result of the karmic imprint planted on your mental continuum is that you will be attacked by others, either now or in the future. Even if you win, there’s only temporary benefit. Many others will also get upset. So, I tried to bring up the issue that these problems can be solved through spiritual means.

I also made a suggestion about tornados and other so-called natural disasters. We call them “natural disasters” and in the West we think they’re natural, but they’re actually not natural. When anybody is experiencing a tornado, hurricane, flood or earthquake, it came from their mind; it came from their self-cherishing thought, ignorance, anger, attachment or another negative emotional thought and from their karma. They have given harm to others motivated by negative thoughts of ill will or anger, which all start with ignorance, anyway. These disasters are the results of harming other beings, and not only human beings but spirits, nagas and other living beings situated in the country. Since these disasters come from the negative karma of the people experiencing them, they’re not natural. They happen because of causes and conditions created by those people.

I also offered an idea as to what could be done to solve these disasters that cause many billions of dollars worth of damage. There are many religions in the United States, and they should all be requested to put effort into solving these problems. Here you have to come to spiritual power, because it’s beyond the capacity of ordinary people to control such things. When a disaster has actually happened, with many people homeless and experiencing unbearable suffering, you can’t do anything about it.

I offered an idea as to what could be done, though it doesn’t matter whether or not anyone pays attention to it. The idea is to request Sangha members, those who are living a pure life, (though lay people can also read it) to recite the Buddha’s precious teaching, Holy Sutra of Golden Light. They can be requested to read it all the time. This would help a lot to protect countries from all such disasters.

This is what came out as beneficial from my Mickey Mouse divination. There have been predictions that there is some danger of poisoning of the water supplies of Washington, New York, Boston and other cities in the United States. According to my divination, Medicine Buddha practice is very good to protect from the danger of this poisoning.

We have here the small booklet from Wisdom Publications, with the very short healing meditation from Padmasambhava, which I translated many years ago.2 Padmasambhava’s short healing practice gives protection from anthrax. I think that is more for the general public, who can’t do much practice.

There is also the short Medicine Buddha text that I translated many years ago at Kopan. In the past it was published as a small dark blue book, though it might now be in a different form.3 It’s a short meditation but very powerful. It’s condensed from the long and middle-length Medicine Buddha pujas, but it’s powerful and unique. This is the Medicine Buddha practice that I try to do when I’m not being lazy. In it you offer the seven limb practice to each Medicine Buddha. Anyway, you can do any of the Medicine Buddha practices.

There’s also a mantra that destroys negative karmas and defilements.4 This mantra is unbelievably beneficial; it’s very powerful for purification but also protects from the dangers of fire, water, earth and so forth. This mantra also came out as good for protection from these dangers.

FOUR BASIC WAYS TO HELP

I mentioned before about compassion, and here we’re trying to organize Universal Education. As part of Universal Education, I thought it would be good to have stories of Buddha’s past lives as a bodhisattva, telling how he sacrificed himself. In so many lifetimes, as a human being and as various animals, he made charity of his holy body to so many other sentient beings, saving their lives and benefiting them. In one lifetime as a king, he made charity of his whole family and all his possessions to others. He sacrificed himself for other sentient beings. There could also be stories of other great bodhisattvas and of the great Italian saint, St. Francis of Assisi, who acted like a real Kadampa geshe. Externally, he prayed to God and appeared a Christian, but his mind was that of a real bodhisattva, a real Kadampa geshe. He preferred to be criticized by others rather than be praised. He was a great holy being. There could also be stories of other Christian saints, such as Mother Teresa, and of Mahatma Gandhi-ji and so forth. There could be stories of any great being from any religion, anyone whose mind was enriched by compassion, who brought much peace and happiness to others, and who offered great service to many sentient beings. Children could learn these stories through theater performances, which could also be shown to adults. Those holy beings could become models for young people, through their becoming familiar with them in theater performances, instead of famous boxers, body-builders or Sumo wrestlers.

Another way to help would be to have special education on how to be kind and tolerant based on His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s public talks. The main things would be all His Holiness’s advice on kindness and compassion, how to live daily life, how to deal with others, how to live in the world, how our happiness is dependent on others and others’ happiness is dependent on us, how we are interconnected. There could also be instructions from Lama Yeshe’s talks, as well as from some of mine on transforming problems.

Another way to help would be through more education in philosophical reasoning. There could be education in the deeper philosophy for practicing all these things. Ideas could be taken from the five major sutra texts, from the very beginning of logical reasoning with dura, through to the higher subjects, such as Madhyamaka. Some of the FPMT geshes could take suitable ideas from various texts and make them into a book, which a group of Western students with the right talents could then put into Western terms and make into a series of books.

Another way to help would be through a new approach to psychology, so that it becomes a bridge to Dharma. That is the fourth point.

There are these four basic ways to help, in which you teach the essence of Buddhism, a little like teaching Buddhism in a university, but you don’t actually tell people they have to devote themselves to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. You teach the essence, but not like in a lam-rim meditation course. This is something that could really become worldwide, because there’s no need to be afraid of any religious bias. People from other religions can learn about these things. That is one big thing about Universal Education. Not everybody can become Buddhist or Christian or Muslim or Hindu, but everybody can participate in Universal Education.

BENEFITS OF MEDICINE BUDDHA PRACTICE

I think that this Medicine Buddha retreat has happened at the right time. There’s now a great need for it. Medicine Buddha practice is the most beneficial thing to do, and there is so much power in doing group practice. I had heard that many people praying together in a monastery has much more power than one person praying alone. I then saw in a lo-jong text by a Kadampa geshe (though I don’t remember which Kadampa geshe it was) that people doing prayers together has more power to bring success than one person praying. Here in this retreat, we are being given the chance to pray together, which is very powerful for our own development, as well as for the effect on the world.

The great enlightened being Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo said that in such a degenerate time Medicine Buddha and Heruka are two very precious deities to practice. When the time is very degenerate, with an explosion of the five degenerations, delusions becoming stronger and harder to abandon. The degeneration of sentient beings means that they are more and more thick-skulled and more and more difficult to subdue. The degeneration of time means that there are more wars, sicknesses (with new diseases coming) and so forth. The degeneration of life means that the life span is becoming shorter and shorter. The degeneration of view means that people very easily believe wrong views and find it difficult to believe the right view. Only a small number of people believe in karma or understand emptiness. There are four schools of Buddhist philosophy, each with a different view in regard to emptiness. The real, unmistaken view is that of the Prasangika school, but those who hold this view are very small in number. It’s only by realizing the Prasangika school’s view of emptiness that you can cut the root of samsara. With realization of the views of emptiness of the other schools—Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, Chittamatra or even Svatantrika Madhyamaka—in reality you can’t cut the root of samsara. It is only by realizing the Prasangika view that you can cut the root of samsara, because the root of samsara is of only one type: a very subtle wrong concept. There’s no mention of subtle wrong concept in the texts—I’m just expressing it this way. In terms of wrong concepts, there are other grosser ones.

So, Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo explained that in such a degenerate time Medicine Buddha and Heruka are two very precious deities to practice. In other words, from sutra, there is Medicine Buddha, and from Highest Yoga Tantra, there is Heruka. With Heruka, the blessing becomes more and more powerful at this time. Therefore, we are very fortunate to be able to practice Medicine Buddha.

Also, the Medicine Buddhas made many prayers in the past. Those who have done the Medicine Buddha puja will have seen in the text that each one of the Medicine Buddhas made different prayers to solve various problems of sentient beings and to bring them happiness and success. They made these prayers to be able to benefit sentient beings in the future. They all then became enlightened. A buddha has skies of qualities, one of which is the ten powers, and one of the ten powers is the power of prayer. In the past the Medicine Buddhas prayed, “When anybody recites my name and mantra, may such and such problems be solved and may they have such and such success.” Because of that, when they became enlightened and achieved the power of prayer, their names and mantras have all this power. When we recite the Medicine Buddhas’ names and mantras, we receive the results of the prayers they made in the past. And if we recite the Medicine Buddhas’ names and mantras, whatever prayers we do are actualized. Therefore, doing Medicine Buddha practice is very powerful for success. People think Medicine Buddha is only for healing. It’s not only for healing but for everything.

After explaining all the inconceivable benefits of practicing, praying to and reciting the name and mantra of Medicine Buddha, Buddha then asked Ananda, his attendant, “Do you believe this?” Ananda replied, “Yes, I believe it. I believe what Buddha has said about these benefits because Buddha has inconceivable qualities, including omniscient mind, which can see everything.”

Buddha then explained that even animals who hear Medicine Buddha’s name will never get reborn in the lower realms. To save them from reincarnating in the lower realms forever is unbelievably compassionate. For each heavy negative karma you commit, you have to experience suffering in the lower realms for many eons. However, by simply hearing the name-mantra of Medicine Buddha, a being is saved forever from being reborn in the lower realms. That is unbelievable! It is simple to chant the name-mantra in the ear of an animal, but it has incredible power because of Medicine Buddha’s bodhicitta. At the very beginning, when Medicine Buddha first generated compassion for sentient beings, Medicine Buddha wished to benefit all sentient beings. The root of all this power is Medicine Buddha’s great compassion, which embraces all us sentient beings. Medicine Buddha developed this compassion and then, of course, achieved omniscient mind. All the skies of benefit we get from simply reciting Medicine Buddha’s name-mantra, with simply hearing the mantra giving protection from the sufferings of samsara, come from Medicine Buddha’s compassion. And sooner or later we will achieve enlightenment. So, all this came from Medicine Buddha’s compassion.

As those who have done Medicine Buddha puja will know, Medicine Buddha practice is also very powerful in purifying degenerations of lay vows and vows of ordination. That is another way this practice saves us from the lower realms. Since in the lower realms we have no opportunity to practice Dharma, being saved from the lower realms enables us to quickly be liberated from samsara and achieve enlightenment.

It is said that Medicine Buddha’s mantra has inconceivable benefits. In the presence of the eight Medicine Buddhas (there are eight Medicine Buddhas when you include Shakyamuni Buddha), Manjushri requested them, “When there’s an explosion of the five degenerations and sentient beings have very little merit, they will mostly engage in negative karma, and positive actions will be very rare. When sentient beings are totally possessed by various sicknesses and spirit harms, may whatever prayers the Medicine Buddhas made in the past quickly be actualized. May sentient beings be able to see the Medicine Buddhas, and may you actualize all the wishes of sentient beings. Please teach us this special mantra.”

In one voice, Shakyamuni Buddha and the seven Medicine Buddhas, then granted this mantra.

If you recite this mantra as a daily practice, all the buddhas and bodhisattvas will always pay attention to you and always guide you. Vajrapani, Owner of the Secrets, and the four guardians will also always protect you.

Last time I came here I brought a copy of the Medicine Buddha sutra and had a photocopy made of it so that you could put it here in the mandala. When you do Medicine Buddha practice, you need that special Medicine Buddha text. If you’re doing Medicine Buddha puja in a Dharma center, you need this special sutra and also the Medicine Buddha mandala. You should keep that in mind. There are two types of sutra. This one elaborately explains the benefits of practicing Medicine Buddha.

As mentioned in the Medicine Buddha sutra, if you practice Medicine Buddha or simply make an offering to Medicine Buddha, all twelve leaders of the groups of the entourage, who are like protectors and each of whom has an entourage of seven hundred thousand, will protect you. Through that all your wishes are then fulfilled.

Also, all your negative karma is purified. All sicknesses and spirit harms are quickly pacified. When someone is in a lot of pain that is difficult to control, if a Medicine Buddha puja is done in a monastery or somewhere else, the person will either recover or peacefully pass away, so that they don’t have to continue with all that pain.

Also, all your wishes are fulfilled.

Some years ago in Taiwan George, a man I met when I went to Taiwan for the first time, gave me a Medicine Buddha statue to fill. He was the only person that I talked to about Dharma on that first visit. I talked to him at the airport, when I was leaving. Because of laziness I didn’t get to fill the statue, but I asked Dr. Adrian Feldmann (Ven. Thubten Gyatso) from Australia to do it. Many people here know Dr. Adrian. He’s one of the elder Sangha and has been a fully ordained monk for many years.

I was in Taiwan about seven days, but nothing much happened at that time. I was kept hostage in a hotel by a Tibetan lama from Sera Je but then a lay person, who has since passed away. One idea was to start a Dharma center and another was to start a translation program in a place where it could be more successful financially. Westerners and others would learn the Tibetan language, and there would be a geshe to translate Dharma texts with the help of a Western professor who knew Tibetan. We had the idea to start these projects in Taiwan. The lama told me that the projects could happen, but something didn’t feel right, so I suddenly changed my plans. Of course, my changing plans is nothing new.

The next day everything was planned for us to go on pilgrimage to Master Hsing Yun’s large monastery in Kaoshiung. The lama had arranged the transport and everything else. With me were Merry Colony, Neil, who was my attendant at that time, and the translator. We were going on pilgrimage to meet the four great abbots of Taiwan and to question them about gelongma vows, as His Holiness had asked for this to be checked in Singapore and other countries. I also had some other Dharma questions that I thought to ask the abbots. Master Hsing Yun was to be the first abbot we visited, and we planned to go the next day. Somebody then came and talked for hours about that Tibetan lama. I then changed my plans in the middle of the night, and the next morning I left for Nepal instead of going on pilgrimage. At the airport before I left I talked a little bit to George about Dharma.

Anyway, George brought a Medicine Buddha statue to be filled. He then gave it to someone who was very sick with cancer. One day this person was lying in bed. He needed his medicine but it was in the bathroom, and he couldn’t move. He slowly turned his head to the Medicine Buddha statue, which had been left on a table beside his pillow. He saw that the Medicine Buddha statue was holding the medicine in its hand. He then took that medicine.

When he later passed away, he slowly turned and put his palms together at his heart, then very peacefully passed away. He wasn’t a Buddhist or of any particular religion, but because of what happened to him, with Medicine Buddha guiding him, I think he must have remembered Medicine Buddha. So he put his palms together at his heart as he was lying there and then very peacefully passed away.

Also, it is very, very powerful to recite the name of each Medicine Buddha seven times. It quickly purifies all the heavy negative karmas collected during beginningless rebirths. One collects much merit and has a long life free from sickness. One is saved from the lower realms and is quickly able to achieve enlightenment.

DEDICATIONS FOR THE RETREAT

We can dedicate the Medicine Buddha initiation and retreat to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s long life. The very first dedication is for His Holiness to have a long life and for all his holy wishes to be accomplished immediately. We can then make the same dedication for other holy beings, other virtuous friends. Besides dedicating for general purposes, we can make this specific dedication.

We can also dedicate our retreat to all the people who are dying now in the war in Afghanistan. And dedicate for all the terrorists and Muslims who are very angry to be able to generate bodhicitta in their minds. This retreat is for all of them, including that skinny person, bin Laden. Whether their body is fat or skinny, may they all generate bodhicitta in their hearts. When I was doing retreat I did do some prayers for those who had died not to be reborn in the lower realms.

We can also dedicate in the following way. “May everyone in the whole world generate loving kindness, compassion and bodhicitta and understand karma. May they abandon negative karma and practice virtue. From that, all the problems—sickness, poverty, so-called natural disasters—will stop and all the good things will happen. There will be peace and happiness in the world. May all sentient beings quickly achieve enlightenment.

“May I also become like Medicine Buddha. May anyone who even hears my name never ever get reborn in the lower realms. May anyone who remembers or recites my name, as with Medicine Buddha’s name, have all their wishes for happiness fulfilled in accordance with the Dharma.

“May all the disasters caused by the weather and all other harms be pacified in the world, and particularly in the United States.”

---

I think before the preparation for the initiation, we’ll maybe have a break?

Ven. Sarah Thresher: Rinpoche, how long?

Rinpoche: A few hours! Maybe a short break of ten or fifteen minutes, then we’ll do the preparation.

Ven. Sarah: Fifteen minutes.

Rinpoche: Fifteen minutes.

---

Saturday, October 27
PREPARATION FOR MEDICINE BUDDHA INITIATION

[Rinpoche leads chanting of the Medicine Buddha mantra.]

MEDICINE BUDDHA PREPARATION

To be qualified to do Medicine Buddha practice, including generating yourself as Medicine Buddha, you need the preliminary of having received a great initiation of Medicine Buddha. As I requested, Chöden Rinpoche gave the great Medicine Buddha initiation here.

Medicine Buddha belongs to Action Tantra, of which there are three types: lotus race, tathagata race and vajra race. Thousand-Arm Chenrezig, as in the nyung-nä practice, and Four-Arm Chenrezig belong to the lotus race of Action Tantra. Mitukpa belongs to the vajra race. Here Medicine Buddha belongs to the tathagata race. So, Action Tantra deities belong to the lotus, vajra or tathagata race.

To do a great initiation you need the preparation. I received the great initiation of Medicine Buddha from Chöden Rinpoche last time, and I just recently finished Medicine Buddha retreat. I’ve been trying to spread the Medicine Buddha practice to as many people as possible. I usually carry photos of Medicine Buddha around with me and give them to many people. I’ve been trying to spread knowledge of the benefits of Medicine Buddha to inspire people to do the practice, which is very simple. The name-mantra is very easy to recite but even it has benefits like the sky. It has unbelievable power to purify negative karma and save beings from the lower realms. For quite a number of years I’ve been trying to inspire people to do this practice and giving out pictures of Medicine Buddha. I feel very fortunate and very happy to be able to help many sentient beings to practice Medicine Buddha.

As far as the preparation for the initiation, there are normally five things to be done. Preparation involves analyzing whether or not a disciple is suitable to be given the initiation; there are different ways of analyzing. In the sadhana there’s preparation of the earth goddess, preparation of the deity’s mandala, preparation of the vase and preparation of the disciple. That’s the general outline. Here today I did the short version of the preparation of the vase and so forth, but it still took a long time.

THE FALSE I

There are self-grasping of the person and self-grasping of the aggregates, which are the base to be labeled “I.” How does ignorance arise? The I and the aggregates are totally empty in nature; they’re empty of existing from their own sides. They are totally empty, like space, devoid of any inherent existence. However, in the view of our hallucinated mind, these phenomena appear to be inherently existent, and we allow our mind to apprehend that as true. That’s how we create the root of samsara, the ignorance that grasps inherent existence.

That ignorance is a totally false, totally mistaken, concept. Why? Because the objects it believes in, the truly existent I and aggregates, are not there. When we think of I, we think of a real I, an I that is not merely labeled; we don’t think of an I that our mind has labeled. On top of that, when the I appears back to us, it doesn’t appear to us to be merely imputed by our mind. We don’t see it that way. We don’t see that the I is merely imputed by our mind. The I doesn’t appear to us in that way, as simply labeled by our mind, and we don’t see it in that way. Even though the reality of how the I exists and how it came into existence is that it’s merely imputed by mind, it doesn’t appear to us in that way and we don’t see it in that way. Even though that is the only way the I exists, being merely imputed by the mind, we don’t see it that way.

The I that appears to us and that we apprehend is totally false. The self that we’re expecting somebody to praise or that gets hurt when somebody criticizes it, the self that gets upset and experiences all those emotional ups and downs, doesn’t exist. We make up so many fantasies about this imagined self. However, not even an atom of this self that appears to be not labeled by our mind and that we apprehend to exist in that way exists. We can’t find it anywhere. It doesn’t exist. Such a self cannot be found anywhere on these aggregates or anywhere else. It is totally empty, totally nonexistent.

HOW TIME EXISTS

When we think of a year, when we don’t analyze how it is merely imputed by our mind, we think of a truly existent year. (I’m talking about a year, not an ear. I remember one time at Vajrapani Institute I was talking about the ear when I was supposed to be talking about the year.) When we think about a year, when we don’t meditate, when we’re not aware that time is made up by our mind, a year appears to us to be a truly existent year. It appears to us like that, and we then allow our mind to believe that it’s a hundred percent true. That’s the view of the ignorance that apprehends inherent, or true, existence. So, that’s a total hallucination.

Now, that hallucination is the normal view of sentient beings. Those of us who haven’t realized emptiness (not only not having a direct perception of emptiness but not having any realization of emptiness) allow our mind to believe that’s true. We don’t question it. We have no doubt that there’s a real year. But we cannot find that year on the first month, second month, third month, fourth month, fifth month, sixth month, seventh month, eighth month, ninth month, tenth month, eleventh month, twelve month, thirteenth month, fifteenth month…. I’m joking. We can’t find the year there on any of the twelve months. And we can’t find the year on all of the twelve months together. The twelve months are the base. When our mind sees the twelve months, we just make up the label “year”; we merely impute “year.”

You can see now that there’s no such thing as a real year there. You cannot see a real year there. Before, a real year always appeared to you and you believed in it, but suddenly it’s not there. It is totally nonexistent. That real year is the object to be refuted, or gak-cha, as explained in the philosophical texts. This is the one you have to realize is empty, nonexistent, because it doesn’t exist. The year that exists is the one that is merely imputed by the mind. There is a year because there are twelve months. That’s it. What is that year? It is nothing other than what is merely imputed by the mind. Your mind merely imputed and believed in that. It’s just a thought, a concept. That’s it.

You can’t say there’s no year at all. There is a year, but it’s totally empty. The year that appeared to you before and that you believed in is totally nonexistent.

Now it is the same with a month. When we don’t analyze, when our mind is not aware of the nature of a month, again a month appears truly existent. A real month appears to be existing from there, and we let our mind hold onto that as a hundred percent true. We never question it. We have no doubt about it. Again, if we look for that month, if we search on the base of each day, we cannot find a month. We cannot find a month even on the whole thirty days together. If we look for it, we cannot find it.

The month that appeared to you and that you believed to be a hundred percent true cannot be found anywhere, neither on the thirty days nor anywhere else. That month is totally nonexistent, totally empty. It is the same with every single one of the twelve months. You cannot find any of the months on that base of thirty days. That month that appeared to you to be truly existent and that you believed to exist in that way is totally nonexistent, empty, right there.

Now, when we think of a day, when we’re not analyzing or not aware of the nature of a day, it appears to be a truly existent day, a real day from there, and we then let our mind believe that there is such a real day, that it’s true. When we then check whether it really does exist on the base, the twenty-four hours, we can’t find it. It doesn’t exist on each hour, and we can’t find it on the collection of all the twenty-four hours. So, the day is totally nonexistent, empty, right there from where it is appearing as a real one. It is totally empty.

Again, with an hour, there’s a real hour appearing to us, and we allow our mind to believe it’s true. But when we look for it on the base, the sixty minutes, we cannot find that real hour. We can’t find it on each minute nor on all the sixty minutes together. Again, that real hour is totally nonexistent, empty, right there from where it is appearing.

It is the same with a minute. When you think of a minute, how does it appear to you? And do you believe in what appears to you? A real minute, a truly existent minute, appears from there. If you look for that real minute, however, you can’t find it on each second nor on all the sixty seconds together. That real minute is totally nonexistent, empty, right there.

When we talk about the speed of a camera, we count in hundredths or thousandths of a second, so there are split seconds. When we think about a second, again a real second appears from there, and we believe it to be true. We don’t question or doubt it. We believe one hundred percent that it’s true. A totally false second appears to us, and we believe it to be true. If we look for that real second in all its split-seconds, however, we can’t find it. We can’t find that second on any of those split-seconds. Again, that real second is totally nonexistent, totally empty.

According to the Prasangika school, it’s the same with a split-second. The truly existent split-second that we believe in is totally false. It is totally nonexistent, totally empty. Everything is totally empty. From the year down to the split-second, and also the divisions of a split-second, everything is totally empty. Or, I could say, from the year down to the split-second, everything is merely imputed by the mind. The way they all exist is simply by being merely imputed by the mind. Therefore, starting from the year and going down through the month, day, hour, minute and second, everything is totally empty of existing from its own side. This is the reality in regard to analyzing the nature of time. The conclusion is that all those divisions of time are empty. While they’re existing, they’re empty. And while they’re empty, they’re existing, existing in mere name. Dependent arising and emptiness are unified, which is what the Buddha realized and taught. That’s why Lama Tsongkhapa highly praised the Buddha. The way that time and other phenomena exist is extremely subtle, extremely fine. There’s an extremely fine line between existing and not existing. This is what Nagarjuna and Lama Tsongkhapa explained.

ANALYZING BODY AND MIND

Now it is the same with the I and the aggregates, the association of body and mind. Everything is merely labeled by the mind, from the body down to the atoms of the body and the particles of those atoms and the particles of those particles. What they are is what is merely labeled by the mind.

Again, from the consciousness down to the seconds of consciousness and the split-seconds of consciousness and the divisions of the split-seconds, what they are is what is merely labeled by the mind. When you think precisely, they are all merely imputed by the mind. Everything is like this, from the I down to the particles of the atoms of the body and the split-seconds of the consciousness.

Therefore, all these are totally empty. From the I down to the particles of the atoms and the particles of those particles and down to the seconds of consciousness, the split-seconds of consciousness and the divisions of those split-seconds, they are all totally empty. They are all totally empty of existing from their own side. From the I down to the particles of the atoms and the split-seconds of consciousness, nothing at all exists from its own side. They are all totally empty. Concentrate intensely on this point.

[There is a very long pause here for meditation.]

THE ROOT OF SAMSARA

This is the very nature of all these phenomena. In reality they are all empty. However, while it is like this in reality, when our mind thinks of the base of the merely imputed I, the aggregates, the negative imprint left on our mental continuum by past ignorance, the concept of inherent existence, immediately projects inherent existence. It is like a camera recording images on a roll of film, which can then be projected onto a movie or TV screen. Right after our mind thinks of the base, the aggregates, right after the mere imputation, the negative imprint left on our mental continuum by past ignorance projects inherent existence. That’s why the I, which is merely imputed by the mind, doesn’t appear back to us as merely imputed by the mind but as the total opposite, as truly existent. Also, we are unaware or we forget that the I is merely imputed by the mind. The first moment of thought merely imputes “I,” but because, first of all, the negative imprint left by the ignorance that apprehends inherent existence causes the I to appear inherently existent and, second, we’re not aware that the I is merely imputed, with the next moment of the continuation of that thought, we believe the inherently existent I to be true. So, the moment we allow our mind to apprehend that this truly existent I is true, that this view is right, we create the root of samsara. That thought apprehending that the I appearing as truly existent is true becomes the root of samsara. The moment we do that this thought becomes the root of samsara, the ignorance apprehending the inherent existence of the I, the self-grasping of the person. When we do the same thing with the aggregates it is then the self-grasping of phenomena, which means the aggregates. This is the root of samsara according to the Prasangika Madhyamaka school. In reality, there is only one root of samsara, not many, and this is it. You can see that this is a very subtle concept.

This is the very root of samsara, the very root of the entire suffering of the six realms. From this root, ignorance, anger, attachment and the other delusions arise and then motivate karma. This body and mind, these aggregates, are suffering in nature. As explained in the lam-rim teachings, they experience suffering rebirth; the suffering of old age; all the 424 different types of sickness; depression, which can be very difficult to cure, going on for years and years; the pain of being unable to find desirable objects; then after having found them the pain of not being able to gain satisfaction. Your mind becomes so unhappy, because even though you have material enjoyments and friends, you can’t find satisfaction. Your mind is hollow, empty. There is also so much suffering from worry and fear about having to separate from those desirable objects. In regard to the sufferings of the aggregates, five types of suffering are explained in the lam-rim.5 However, whatever feeling these aggregates experience—pleasure, suffering or indifference—is suffering in nature. There is also the suffering of death. So, all these sufferings are the productions of ignorance. They all came from ignorance.

When a plane crashes into a building and the whole thing becomes an inferno, with many people suffering and dying, and smoke still coming from it many days later, where do all those appearances of fire and smoke and people dying come from? It’s the creation of mind. It all came from this ignorance, this root of samsara. It is all a production of the ignorance of the people who experience it.

It is similar with the beings in the hot hells, who live in a place that is oneness with fire. There is a red-hot iron ground that is one with fire. In one of the secondary hot hells, there are oceans of red-hot lava that are one with fire, as when a volcano erupts. Beings are born and have to suffer there for many eons. There are also iron houses that are one with fire and whole fields of swords, where there is nowhere you can step without cutting yourself. All the appearances of those unpleasant places are the productions of delusion; they all come from this ignorance. All those terrifying hell realms are productions of this wrong concept that I described just before.

In other words, all the unbelievable sufferings of the six realms come from that concept, that subtle thought that makes you view objects wrongly. All those sufferings come simply from that thought, simply from apprehending objects in the wrong way. This thought itself is kind of nonsense, but it can have a great effect, as in the recent example with the terrorists, which brought unbelievable suffering here and also affected the rest of the world.

THE DANGERS OF SELF-CHERISHING

We must be liberated from all these samsaric sufferings forever by ceasing karma and delusion, by ceasing this ignorance along with its seed, or imprint. However, simply achieving that is not sufficient as it doesn’t complete the works for self and for other sentient beings. The cessation of defilements and accomplishment of realizations are still not complete. During beginningless rebirths up to now, it is the ego, the self-cherishing thought, that hasn’t allowed us to achieve enlightenment. It hasn’t allowed us to achieve even liberation from samsara. And it is following this self-cherishing thought that hasn’t allowed us to have any lam-rim realization during beginningless rebirths up to now. These are the shortcomings of this ego. This is the real demon, our real enemy. And it is this ego that has made us suffer in samsara and experience all these obstacles up to now.

Think, “If I don’t get rid of this self-cherishing thought right now, I will continuously experience the sufferings of samsara without end and won’t achieve any realizations of the path to enlightenment. It will cause me to continuously suffer in samsara.

“What is more harmful, all the atomic bombs in this world or my self-cherishing thought? Even if they cause my death, all those atomic bombs alone can’t make me to be reborn in the lower realms, in the hell realms. But if this ego, this self-cherishing thought, is there, it causes me to be reborn in the lower realms by obliging me to create negative karma. So, this self-cherishing thought is much more harmful than all the atomic bombs and other weapons in this world.

“And what is more harmful, all the cancer and other sicknesses or my self-cherishing thought? Even if they cause my death, all the sicknesses alone can’t make me to be reborn in the hell realms. If death happens, one can go to a pure land. Many holy beings and meditators who had cancer have gone to a pure land or reincarnated again to continue to benefit sentient beings. Sickness alone, even if it causes death, doesn’t cause one to be reborn in the lower realms. But if self-cherishing thought is there, it causes not just death but rebirth in the lower realms. It doesn’t allow one to be reborn in the pure land of a buddha or to receive a perfect human rebirth in the next life.”

No matter how much poison or anthrax there is in the world it’s nothing when compared to the danger from your own ego, your own self-cherishing thought. Even if the poison causes your death, you can still go to a pure land or have a perfect human rebirth and continue to practice Dharma and benefit others. Even if the poison kills you, it can’t interfere with those things.

Think, “Poison alone can’t make me to be reborn in the lower realms, in the hell realms. I can still go to the pure land of a buddha and achieve enlightenment there or receive a perfect human rebirth. But if I have self-cherishing thought, it doesn’t allow those things to happen and causes me to be reborn in the lower realms, in the hell realms. Therefore, this is the great demon; this is my enemy. And it is not only my enemy, harming me, but it harms all sentient beings. So, I must eliminate this ego, this self-cherishing thought, right now. I must abandon it right now and change to cherishing others.”

CHERISHING OTHERS

Think, “Great compassion is generated in dependence upon all sentient beings: every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, asura, sura and human being, including even my enemy, the person whom I hate or who hates me, who criticizes or provokes me or causes me trouble. From great compassion, bodhicitta is generated; from that, a bodhisattva happens; from that, Buddha happens; and from Buddha, Dharma then happens. All the good karma that I’ve collected in the past during beginningless rebirths, that I am collecting now and that I will collect in the future is the action of the Buddha. All these virtuous actions, all this Dharma, are the actions of Buddha. From all these virtuous actions, which are Buddha’s actions, I then receive all my past, present and future happiness, including the realizations of the path to enlightenment. The infinite qualities of Buddha’s holy body, holy speech and holy mind that I will achieve come from good karma, the Buddha’s action, collected in the past and present and which will be collected in the future.

“Therefore, I receive all my past, present and future happiness, including enlightenment, by the kindness of every single hell being. They are the most kind, most precious one in my life.

“And I receive every single happiness, past, present and future, in dependence upon the kindness of every single hungry ghost. They are the most kind, most precious one in my life.

“I receive all my past, present and future happiness by the kindness of every single animal. They’re the most kind, most precious one in my life.”

Meditate very strongly on this. Feel how kind and precious they are.

“I receive every single one of my past, present and future happiness by the kindness of every single human being. They are the most kind, most precious one in my life.

“I receive every single past, present and future happiness of mine by the kindness of every single asura, every single sura and every single intermediate state being. So, every single asura, sura and intermediate state being is the most kind, most precious one in my life.

“Therefore, in my life there’s nobody to cherish and nobody to work for except other sentient beings. What they want is happiness and what they don’t want is suffering. I must free them from all their suffering and its causes and bring them to enlightenment by myself alone. Therefore, I must achieve full enlightenment. Therefore, for success in actualizing the whole path and for great success in being able to offer skies of benefit to sentient beings and to the teaching of Buddha, I’m going to take the preparation for the Medicine Buddha initiation.”

That’s the essence. Only someone with a motivation of bodhicitta, someone who is seeking enlightenment, is allowed to enter the mandala. Otherwise, you are not allowed to enter it.

If you have that attitude of seeking enlightenment, everything else—liberation from samsara, the happiness of future lives and the happiness of this life—come by the way.

MEDICINE BUDDHA PREPARATION6

Now, here, if you’re taking the great initiation, you have to generate yourself as the deity. You purify in emptiness, and the wisdom seeing emptiness then generates into the deity.

---

Wisdom focuses on the aspect of the deity’s holy body and at the same time understands that it’s empty. This is the unification of method and wisdom. The meaning of vajra is the inseparability of these two, method and wisdom. Since your mind is transformed into this transcendental wisdom and it brings you to enlightenment, it’s like a vehicle, or yana, in Sanskrit. This vehicle brings you to enlightenment.

---

The life span gets longer and longer, up to eighty thousand years. During that time, since no Buddha descends, it’s a dark age. Maitreya Buddha descends in this world and reveals Dharma when the length of human life is increasing to eighty thousand years, but in the case of the rest of the buddhas I think they descend and give teachings when the length of human life is becoming shorter.

Meeting a buddha is extremely rare, and meeting tantra is much rarer than that, but we have met it at this time. The Vajrayana, or Secret Mantra, teaching is very powerful. Simply seeing a mandala, whether a sand or a drawn mandala, purifies many tens of millions of eons of negative karma that you have collected. Here, each time you do the sadhana, you have to visualize the mandala of the deity, and each time you do this you purify many tens of millions of eons of negative karma. This happens each time you do a sadhana, which involves visualizing a mandala.

Simply seeing a painted or drawn mandala purifies the five uninterrupted negative karmas and the ten nonvirtuous actions. The Vajrayana teaching is very powerful. If simply seeing a mandala does this, there is no doubt that if you actually do the practice and recite the mantra, you will achieve enlightenment quickly. It has skies of benefit. During this time, we’ve met not only the Mahayana but the Vajrayana teaching, so we must put all our effort into doing the practices of listening, reflecting and meditating. We should generate happiness that at this time we have met tantra.

Just as the door to enter the Mahayana path is bodhicitta, the door to enter tantra is initiation. Receiving initiation allows you to practice tantra, to do the retreat and the meditation-recitation of the deity.

---

Protection from obstacles comes with the action mantra and with the sprinkling of the dispelling water. To protect them from obstacles until they receive the initiation, the disciples are given the action mantra to recite two or three times before going to sleep.

[Rinpoche recites OM VAJRA AMRITA KUNDALI HANA HANA HUM PHAT three times.]

The disciples are also given advice to analyze, or check, their dreams. You go to bed with the plan to recognize your dreams. If the night is divided into three parts, you pay attention to the dreams in the third part of the night, from around three or four o’clock, not to those in the first and second parts of the night. Try to remember the dreams that happen just before you wake up. Go to bed with the thought to recognize and remember your dreams.

So, the preparation is finished. Please offer a short mandala.

[The group offers a short mandala.]

DEDICATIONS

Due to all the merits of the three times collected by me and those collected by others, may bodhicitta be generated within my own mind and in the minds of all sentient beings without even a second’s delay. May the bodhicitta that has been generated be increased.

Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me and the merits of the three times collected by others, may all the father and mother sentient beings have happiness; may the three lower realms be empty of beings forever; may all the bodhisattvas’ prayers be accomplished immediately; and may I be able to cause all this to happen by myself alone.

---

NOTES

1. From A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, chap. 1, v. 10.

It is like the supreme gold-making elixir,
For it transforms the unclean body we have taken
Into the priceless jewel of a Buddha-Form.
Therefore firmly seize this Awakening Mind. [Return to text]

2. Healing Buddha: A practice for the prevention and healing of disease, composed by Padmasambhava and translated by Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, FPMT Education Services, 2001. [Return to text]

3. Medicine Buddha Sadhana, composed by Ngawang Losang Tempa Gyältsän, translated by Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche and prepared by Ven. Thubten Gyatso, FPMT Education Services, 2002. [Return to text]

4. The mantra is OM BI PULA GARBHE MANI PRABHE / TATAGATA DHARI SHANI / MANI MANI SUPRABHE VIMALA SANGARA GAMBHIRA HUM HUM JVALA JVALA / BUDDHA VILOKITE GUHYA / ADHISHTITE GARBHE SVAHA / PADMA DHARA AMOGA JAYATI CHURU CHURU SVAHA. [Return to text]

5. The aggregates are (1) vessels for future suffering; (2) vessels for present suffering; (3) vessels for the suffering of pain; (4) vessels for the suffering of change; and (5) vessels for pervasive, compounding suffering. [Return to text]

6. Most of the preparation for the Medicine Buddha initiation has not been transcribed. [Return to text]