Medicine Buddha’s healing practice is just one of Buddhism’s many methods to help us overcome our daily problems.

Buddhism offers a multitude of solutions to help us overcome the challenges we encounter in daily life. This includes problems related to our health, such as illness and disease, which are inevitable. In this concise teaching, H.E. Tsem Rinpoche gives an overview of various practices within Tibetan Buddhism that can help us heal ourselves and others. These methods encompass both sutric and tantric approaches.

From a Buddhist viewpoint, conventional healing methods, whether rooted in Western medicine or more traditional forms, only provide symptomatic relief, as the ultimate cause of illness lies in the mind. The root cause of illness are our afflictive emotions, the main of which are known as the Three Poisons (ignorance, hatred and attachment).

When done properly, Buddhist forms of healing not only provide symptomatic relief but also deeper healing of the underlying causes — the Three Poisons, their combinations and their extensions.

Only by addressing these underlying causes can we truly heal ourselves of physical and emotional ills which cause us so much pain and suffering.

AUDIO: Introduction to the Buddhist Healing Arts

Transcript

There are many types of healing arts in Tibetan Buddhism, according to sutra and according to tantra. When the time comes, I will be okay with you having other people join in who are interested. I don’t know who else is interested but you can suggest their names in the future.

One thing that is very important is that, when we learn up the healing arts, normal medical healing, normal means everyday layperson, secular, healing focuses on the body more than the mind. The mind is focused a little when the practitioner, or the doctor or the healer explains the procedure, tells you the seriousness, and gives you the prognosis. And also gives you good news by saying how it can be healed. So in that way they comfort your mind to let you understand what is happening to your body when you are ill. But, actually those healers and doctors, they actually don’t go deeper than that.

For example, if we suffer a lot of anxiety attacks because of fear and a lot of self-grasping, and a lot of projections about how things should be, and when things are not the way we think it is, we suffer quite a lot from that. What happens is that, we can get fear, night fear, we can have palpitations, we can have body sweating, we can even have fainting or feel dizzy, we can even lose the control of our limbs and go numb and collapse. These are physical problems that can come from the mind and how afraid we are. That’s one thing.

Loma Gyonma – the Lady of the Leaves is as well-known healing deity

We can take medication and revive the person, we can warm them up with blankets, but if they don’t get rid of the fear and the anxiety in their mind and their self-grasping, and their projections, then they are going to keep having anxiety attacks all the time. So, whatever medical healing a person can have, it will only be temporary. It will remain chronic and also it will not be ultimate healing, or healing from the source. It will be more symptomatic healing.

Similarly, if someone drinks a lot of alcohol or takes intoxicants, they weaken their immune system, so they are more able to get flu, get sick, they are weak, they get tired fast, they have other medical problems that arise over long term usage of intoxicants. Then to heal the body, with vitamins, exercise, fresh air, good food, medications, whatever, to strengthen the body is possible. But if we keep taking the intoxicants, we keep weakening it. So, what we are doing is we’re strengthening it, then we weaken it. We strengthen it, then we weaken it. Then one day the body will just give out because there is nothing to strengthen anymore because the immune system will just go out.

Similarly, what we have to do is remove the actual cause of the physical sickness, which in Buddhism all stems from the mind – the Three Poisons, and the combinations of the Three Poisons and their extensions. And their extensions that lead to thousands and thousands of different types of mental problems, which lead to physical problems. So therefore, in Buddhist healing we definitely have to attack the source of all the medical problems, which is the mind. At the same time, heal the body, which is extremely important.

Hence, medical practitioners of the Tibetan tradition in the past will adopt a healing deity, or healing practice, or healing meditation, healing pujas, healing rituals to do every single day before they actually heal or want to be healed by medication.

For example, you have healing practices such as Black Manjushri, which is extremely effective. I’ve heard over and over from my teachers and various lamas for very stubborn difficult mental and physical diseases, for diseases that are extremely stubborn and persistent. We basically give life and force to these diseases because of our attachments and projections. It’s a powerful opponent to these.

Trakpo Sumtril – Vajrapani, Hayagriva & King Garuda combined into one deity is an extremely powerful healing practice. Click on image to enlarge.

And then you have practices like Vajrapani – Trakpo Sumtril, or Vajrapani, Hayagriva and Garuda, which is the Three Wrathful Ones combined into one, which is called Trakpo Sumtril, which is also very effective. And I’ve had personal experiences with this when I have conferred it to various people, it actually saved their lives. Even people who have extremely bad omens, they are having bad dreams of their impending disaster or death, or accidents, by doing Trakpo Sumtril they have eliminated it completely. This I have experienced myself first hand, I have seen it and know it definitely works.

Then you have other healing deities like Avalokiteshvara Singhetra, you have Loma Gyonma – the lady who wears the leaves. Then you have of course the traditional Medicine Buddha, which again I have experienced is extremely effective. Because when my little Mumu was sick, I did intense pujas to Medicine Buddha and I saw the difference it made in Mumu’s healing.

There are many, many practices. Those are more tantric in nature. Then you have the sutra practices of healing the body and diseases or their causes, such as prostrations but with a different type of visualisation, also the 35 Confessional Buddhas, Vajrasattva, making tsa tsas, creating statues, circumambulation, going on pilgrimage, even making sang offerings or doing Lutor Puja, or doing Lusang. Lusang is the incense offering to the nagas, who sometimes create problems. You have very powerful pujas like Mamo Trokhang. There are many, many ways to heal, in the hundreds.

There are sutra recitations such as one can engage in the recitation of the holy Kangyur, which for a normal person to recite out loud, it can take a year to recite. You recite every day for a couple of hours, the Kangyur sutras, one by one. Reciting Kangyur sutras are extremely powerful for purification also, because you are reciting the written spoken words of the Buddha. It’s not even the commentaries of the Buddha.

Then there is of course the Heart Sutra and ritual, which is another very powerful method to purify a lot of fears and diseases, and mental fears that come from attachment, that come from grasping. Especially from grasping and attachment, because emptiness totally cuts that off.

Then you have lighter methods in sutra, such as making water offerings to various healing deities. You have the practice of Luwang Gyalpo, which is the Buddha with the white head, white neck and blue body. Then you have Tara healing practices such as White Tara. Namgyalma. You have other healing practices such as Amitayus, which again is extremely effective because our Protector recommends Amitayus to people quite often. I have given a teaching and there is a blog post on that, on doing the practice and retreats and I recommend it for some our students. So, Amitayus is another one that is extremely, extremely powerful.

The Three Poisons, represented by the snake (hatred), rooster (attachment) and pig (ignorance) are the deeper causes of illness.

Whatever it is, I can pass the lineage, I can pass the practice down. Also, within me, within myself, I have a special wind meditation practice that has no words. It is not written and it may not be written. It is not allowed to be written. It is not allowed to be passed or written. No notes are allowed to be taken. If it is written, notes are taken or it is recorded in any way, then there will be punishments from the dakinis. I repeat, if it is recorded in any method, such as written form, in text form, then there will be punishments from the dakinis and that lineage will be broken.

So, I received this special practice from Gen Nyima Rinpoche. He taught it to me. It is very easy to do, it’s very simple. But it has to be given from teacher to disciple and it has to be shown, it has to be passed on that way. I have never ever given this lineage to anyone. I have never ever given this practice to anyone. I have never given this description of the practice to anyone. Because Gen Nyima told me it has to be given to someone who has firm faith in the Three Jewels, who is committed to do it every single day, and who can keep it secret. I haven’t found such a person yet who is that committed.

The purpose of this practice is that it will eliminate anger from its core. It is a practice that the dakinis gave to the lamas and Gen Nyima received it. So it is a spoken teaching, it is a secret lineage, where the dakinis spoke it to a guru, the guru passed it to the disciple, to the disciple, to the disciple. And you can do it every single day but you have to do it alone, without anyone. And it cannot be seen or heard by anyone or it will lose its effectiveness. If it is written or recorded in any way or shared to others who are not qualified, then there will be punishments from the dakinis. It will anger the dakinis who gave this lineage and practice. And therefore, the blessings will be gone.

The point of this practice is to get rid of one’s anger from the core. As one does this practice every single day, continuously, over and over and over, with firm faith in the Three Jewels, one will see one’s anger dissipate. And from anger, angry words, angry actions, revenge, jealousy, attachments, all that will release and also reduce.

When we reduce anger, a lot of diseases within us will heal. A lot of diseases are triggered by anger. Constantly our body can feel our mind’s anger. So, if we are always angry with something, angry with someone, with a situation, with a problem, then that builds up in our body emotionally. That emotionally takes a toll on our body. Eventually, our body is worn down, the immune system is worn down. Then some diseases arise due to that anger energy.

So therefore, I also have that lineage of practice which I have not passed to anyone. To get that, one has to have very firm faith in the Three Jewels, one has to be firm on one’s practice and one has to be very consistent in one’s practice. To say “I can’t do this, I can’t do that, I failed in that, I gave up on that, I couldn’t do this, I forgot to do this, I skipped that.” To people who talk like that, the practice may not be passed down to them. Therefore until now, I have not found anyone to pass it down to.

Now, what is important before the healing practices is to do the preliminary practices. The preliminary practices are extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely important. Without doing the preliminary practices, if you do the healing practices, it is like putting clean food on a very dirty plate. When you put very clean, delicious, hot, fresh food on a dirty plate, you can’t eat it anymore even if the food is clean. Because the dirtiness of the plate will infect the food. If you eat it, you will get sick. So even if the food is very clean, very fresh, very hot, and very scrumptious, the plate has to be clean. Similarly, if we give one of these secret tantric practices, one of these powerful tantric practices to a person who is inconsistent, always gives up, always prefers to say that they cannot, always finds excuses for not being able to do this and that, then it is like putting food on a dirty plate.

What happens is that all of us, me, you, everyone is basically a dirty plate. So, we are not able to get any practices. That is why there are purification practices and preliminary practices. The preliminary practices and purification practices are very necessary to clean our personal dirty plates. And then we are able to put fresh delicious food on – of the practice of tantra. So, that’s kind of a description for you. Do keep this tape for other people who want to take this teaching from me in the future, so that they will understand this. And you can teach this to other people. Nothing we are speaking of here is secret.

For more interesting information:

• The Healing Deity – Loma Gyonma
• Dorje Shugden Shize: A practice for healing and long life
• Healing Practices for Infectious Diseases
• Healing the defects of our eyes
• A Black Manjushri Sadhana: Self-Healing Meditation and Exercises
• Transcript: Amitayus Sadhana practice
• Making Water Offerings to the Buddhas
• The Exaggeration of Attachment
• Deity Practice in Buddhism
• Medicine Buddha Healing Fountain at Kechara Forest Retreat!

Please support us so that we can continue to bring you more Dharma:

If you are in the United States, please note that your offerings and contributions are tax deductible. ~ the tsemrinpoche.com blog team