Healers and Healing

Medicine Buddha is extremely important, and the group can also do Amitayus long life meditation. There is a version in Chinese. There is also the White Tara long life meditation, which you can get from the Dharma center if you don’t have it. You can also do the 21 Praises to Tara, with strong meditation and prayer, then visualize the nectar coming out from the heart of the 21 Taras to those who need the healing (those who are present, those at home, and those in hospital). Also, think the light is going out to all sentient beings.

As you recite the mantras it is excellent to bless water. You do this by blowing on the water after reciting a number of mantras. The order of the session, if possible, is first do Medicine Buddha practice and then other deity meditations like thousand-arm Chenrezig. The reason for doing Medicine Buddha first is it helps to bring success for the prayers and wishes for self and others.

Find out from the geshe the best day to start the first class. You only need the date on which to begin.

If water has already been blessed from a previous session, then everyone can sip it at the beginning of the next session, particularly the patients.

It is also good to set up holy objects for people to circumambulate. This is for the patients in particular. Visualize nectar, energy, and light emanating from the holy objects to the patients, healing all disease, negative karma, spirit harm, and obstacles. It would be good to have a Medicine Buddha statue to circumambulate, if possible. Slowly, the same healing practice can be established in our other centers.

There is a collection of healing advice that you should study (I have put it together). I will let you know how you can get this information.

The most important thing for the healing to be a success is strong faith. Healing comes from the power of the mind (of those participating) and Buddha's omniscient mind and great compassion.

With much love and prayer...

My very dear one,
Thank you for your kind letter. I am sorry I did not have time to meet with you at Kopan Monastery.

Regarding your question of bridging Buddhism and healing, if you practice healing with refuge in your mind, renunciation of samsara, compassion, emptiness, and with right view, then the healing becomes Buddhism; it becomes a remedy for samsara. If you practice healing with bodhicitta, then the healing becomes a cause to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. Also, healing can be performed along with Buddhist tantric practices.

It would be very good for you to study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, also other books on the lamrim, including ones by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, philosophical books that give an overall view of Buddhism, as well as my books, The Door to Satisfaction, Transforming Problems, and Ultimate Healing.

It would be very good for you to do retreat from time to time on the lamrim and also on deities such as Chenrezig, Tara, and Medicine Buddha. Then, on top of that practice, as much as you can in your daily life, meditate on the lamrim, whenever you can, and perform all your daily activities with renunciation. Also, you can try to have right view (emptiness) and, especially, perform all your activities with bodhicitta—making your life most beneficial. In this way, you collect vast amounts of merit.

This way not only do you have intellectual understanding, and with that you can benefit others, but also through meditating and performing your daily activities with the lamrim, you can benefit others from your own experience of the lamrim. Therefore, your meditation practice is very important.

It is very good to talk about Dharma to others, especially to talk about compassion.

With much love and prayers...