Medicine Buddha Puja

The Medicine Buddha practice is extremely powerful and beneficial for the sick and dying, as well as for those who have already passed away. It will also help bring deep and profound benefits to those in the healing profession. If you wish to dedicate this puja to your loved ones please send us the names and photos of your family and friends by email or by mail so that we can include them.

“If one meditates on the Medicine Buddha, one will eventually attain enlightenment, but in the meantime one will experience an increase in healing powers both for oneself and others and a decrease in physical and mental illness and suffering.”

The Medicine Buddha practice is extremely powerful and beneficial for the sick and dying, as well as for those who have already passed away. It will also help bring deep and profound benefits to those in the healing profession. If you wish to dedicate this puja to your loved ones please send us the names and photos of your family and friends by email or by mail so that we can include them.

We invite all our members and friends to join the puja for the benefit of all beings. This ritual, when performed in conjunction with medical treatment, helps to enhance the healing power of medicine or surgery by invoking the enlightening influence of the Medicine Buddha.

Ancient teachings tell us that merely seeing the Medicine Buddha, or even seeing an image of the Medicine Buddha, or hearing the name of the Medicine Buddha, can confer inconceivable benefits. In Tibetan images of the Medicine Buddha the left hand typically holds a blooming myrobalan plant. Tibetan medicine recognizes three basic types of illness, the root causes of which are the conflicting emotions — passion, aggression, and ignorance. Myrobalan is the only herb in the Tibetan pharmacopoeia that can aid in healing each of these three types of diseases. This is like the action of the Buddha of Healing, who has the power to see the true cause of any affliction, whether spiritual, physical or psychological, and who does whatever is necessary to alleviate it.

In his Teachings on the Medicine Buddha the Ven. Thrangu Rinpoche discusses the position of the Medicine Buddha’s two hands: “His right hand is extended, palm outward, over his right knee in the gesture called supreme generosity. In it he holds the arura, or myrobalan, fruit.

This plant represents all the best medicines. The position of his right hand and the arura which he holds represent the eradication of suffering, especially the suffering of sickness, using the means of relative truth. Sickness can be alleviated by adjusting the functioning of interdependent causes and conditions by the use of relative means within the realm of relative truth, such as medical treatment and so on. The giving of these methods is represented by the gesture of the Medicine Buddha’s right hand.

“His left hand rests in his lap, palm upward, in the gesture of meditative stability or meditation, which represents the eradication of sickness and suffering— and, indeed, the very roots of samsara— through the realization of absolute truth. From the point of view of either relative truth or absolute truth, the fundamental cause of sickness and suffering is a lack of contentment and the addictive quality of samsara. Therefore, to indicate the need for contentment, in his left hand he holds a begging bowl.”

Notice

• You can bring some offerings to Center; such as, flower, fruit, candy, milk, and any food.
• Date: On the 8th day of every month (Tibetan calendar)