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[Mediatation zafu, mandala and buddha textures, as well as this notecard constitute the Medicine Buddha kit. Please seek out a qualified teacher in RL for complete instruction if possible. If not, may these materials be of benefit to you!]

Teachings on the Medicine Buddha Sadhana and Medicine Buddha Sutra 
given by 
Ven. Thrangu Rinpoche

    "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."
    Lama Tashi Namgyal

[These teachings, on the Medicine Buddha Sadhana and the Medicine Buddha Sutra, were given in 1999 by the Very Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche at a retreat in Washington State. Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche is widely revered as a scholar and  teacher. H.H. Karmapa, XVI, head of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, announced that Thrangu Rinpoche was the main scholar, the most learned person, of the Kagyu school. These particular teachings, on the Medicine Buddha, are beautifully clear and at the same time profound.]
http://www.dharma-haven.org/thrangu-medicine-buddha.htm


Teachings on the Medicine Buddha Sadhana 
A Practice That Is Extremely Effective In the Removal of Sickness




"We might think that fundamentally we are practicing the Medicine Buddha in order to benefit our own bodies, whereas the motivation of bodhicitta is the wish to benefit all beings. But in fact there is no contradiction, because, in order to be effective in benefiting other beings, we need to accomplish an excellent samadhi or meditative absorption; and in order to accomplish that, together with the insight and realization that it brings, we need to have a stable practice. In order to have a stable and profound practice, we need to be physically and mentally healthy or comfortable, because by being comfortable in our body, and comfortable in our mind, we will be free of obstacles to diligence in practice and free of obstacles to the cultivation of meditative absorption. So therefore, we are practicing the Medicine Buddha in order to attain states of mental and physical health or balance, not merely for our own benefit, but for the benefit of others as well."

"The primary technique in the meditation consists of imagining ourself to be the Medicine Buddha, conceiving of yourself as the Medicine Buddha. By replacing the thought of yourself as yourself with the thought of yourself as the Medicine Buddha, you gradually counteract and remove the fixation on your personal self. And as that fixation is removed, the power of the seventh consciousness is reduced. And as it is reduced, the kleshas or mental afflictions are gradually weakened, which causes you to experience greater and greater well-being in both body and mind." 

"In most religious traditions, the deities of that tradition, when they are related to or imagined, are imagined in front of one. Then, visualizing the deity or deities as being present in front of one, one prays to them, and by doing so hopefully one receives their blessing, which benefits one in some way. In the vajrayana [thunderbolt/Tibetan] tradition, however, we regard the blessing and the power and the qualities of the deities as being innate, as being within one's own mind."

"It is through regarding oneself as the deity that defects are gradually eradicated and qualities gradually revealed. The primary technique of visualization is to visualize ourselves as the deity, because the potential to transcend our problems is innate rather than external to us."

"We supplement the visualization of ourselves as the deity with visualizations such as imagining the actual wisdom deities themselves dissolving into ourselves again and again, by means of which we receive their blessing. Sometimes we visualize the deity in front of us, separate from ourselves, thinking that rays of light from the deity's heart engulf and pervade us, granting the blessing of the deity. And sometimes we visualize that rays of light, which embody the blessing of that deity in front of us, strike all beings, removing their obstacles, 
increasing their longevity, wisdom, and so on." 

"The practice of the Medicine Buddha comes primarily from the uncommon tradition of the vajrayana, which means that the transmission of the practice is done using three processes called the empowerment, which ripens; the instruction, which frees; and the reading transmission, which supports. The function of empowerment, the formal ceremony or ritual of empowerment, is to introduce you to the practice and to the process of visualization and so forth, which will make up the practice. The function of the instruction, which frees, is to give you complete access to the practice by means of telling you literally how to do it? what you do with your body, what you say with your speech, and what you think with your mind. The function of the reading transmission, which supports, is to transmit the blessing of the lineage of the practice which serves to consecrate or bless your practice in the form of sound. Because the lineage has been transmitted as the sound of the words of its transmission, when the reading transmission is given to you, you simply listen to the sound and think that by doing so you receive the blessing of the lineage." 

"With regard to the empowerment, you should understand that the Medicine Buddha practice is not solely a vajrayana practice. Like the practice of mahamudra, it is a combination of vajrayana [tantra] and sutra. For example, while we could say that mahamudra is primarily taught in the vajrayana, it is also found in certain sutras, such as the Samadhiraja Sutra, and so forth. In the same way, this practice of the Medicine Buddha is a combination of what the Buddha taught about the Medicine Buddha in the sutras of the Medicine Buddha and in various tantras. Because it is connected with vajrayana, it is most appropriate to receive the empowerment to enhance the practice; but because it is also connected with the sutras, it is acceptable to do the practice without the empowerment as 
well." 

The Reading Transmission
Thrangu Rinpoche then gave the reading transmission, or lung, for this Medicine Buddha practice, going through the text and explaining for each of the various sections what it's purpose is, what the practitioner should actually be doing at that point in the liturgy, and what the various symbols and symbolic actions mean.

The liturgy begins with a supplication of the Medicine Buddha and his retinue, including the holders of the lineage of this teaching, in order to invite the awareness of and to receive the blessings of the deity and the lineage.

The invocation of the principle Medicine Buddha begins with these lines:

You are endowed with an oceanic treasury of qualities and merit;
By the blessing of your inconceivable compassion 
You calm the suffering and torment of sentient beings. 
I supplicate you, Light of Lapis Lazuli.

Before Rinpoche's reading of, and commentary on, the Sadhana, each participant was given a card with an image of the Medicine Buddha. (The image at the top of this page is a different image of the Medicine Buddha.)

The section of the liturgy on the details of the visualization sketches out the main features of the image of the Medicine Buddha, and Thrangu Rinpoche explains the meaning of each of the important symbols. For example, the description and commentary on the arms and hands points out  how they symbolize the Medicine Buddha's mastery of both physical and spiritual aspects of healing:

"The Medicine Buddha has two arms. His right hand in the mudra of supreme generosity holds an arura. His left hand in meditation mudra holds a begging bowl.

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."

Rinpoche points out that the visualization is much more than merely wishful fantasy:

"More important than how many deities you visualize is to understand what you are doing. And most important is to understand that by visualizing yourself as the Medicine Buddha you are not pretending to be something that you are not, and that by visualizing the Medicine Buddha and his retinue in front of you, you are not pretending that they are in a place where they are not. By definition, buddhas are omniscient. Whenever someone thinks of them, brings them to mind, or supplicates them, they are aware of it and respond with their compassion and blessing. In the final analysis, the situation is identical to their actually being present anywhere they are thought of. Therefor, 
it is always appropriate to regard a buddha that is present in one?s mind as actually being present in front of one. When you think that the Medicine Buddha, together with his retinue, is present in front of you, it is really true that they are.

Visualizing yourself as the Medicine Buddha is also appropriate, because your fundamental nature? what you truly are? is buddha nature. Buddha nature is essentially the potential to attain awakening. At some point in the future you will attain the same awakening or buddhahood as the Medicine Buddha himself. By visualizing yourself as the Medicine Buddha, you are assuming the appearance of what fundamentally you are even now and what manifestly you will be upon your awakening. It is to acknowledge this truth that you assume the aspect of the body, speech, and mind of the Medicine Buddha, which is, therefore, entirely appropriate."

"If you can visualize clearly, it is best to do all of this very slowly and gradually. While you continue to say the mantra, you think that rays of light emerge from the self-visualization, go to the front visualization, and then from the front visualization outwards to the pure realms, proceeding gradually and slowly. Especially when the blessings of body, speech, and mind rain down upon and dissolve into you, you can do the visualizations in sequence: first, visualizing the blessings of body raining down, without being in any kind of a hurry and so quite distinctly; and then visualizing the blessings of speech and then the blessings of mind. If you find that the visualization is extremely unclear, if you wish, you can do it all at once. But if you do it gradually and slowly, you will find that you will get a much stronger sense of the blessings actually entering into you. By taking your time with the visualization, you will develop real confidence, a real feeling of the blessings entering into you."

Rinpoche describes a special type of visualization when the main point is the actual alleviation of sickness:

"You can visualize yourself as the Medicine Buddha, if you wish, but the main focus is to actually visualize a small form of the Medicine Buddha, no larger than four finger-widths in height, in the actual part of your body that is afflicted. So if it is an illness or pain in the head, visualize a small Medicine Buddha in he head; .... Visualize the Medicine Buddha in that place, and think that from this small but vivid form of the Medicine Buddha rays of light are emitted. These rays of light are not simply light, which is dry, but liquid light having a quality of ambrosia. This luminous ambrosia or liquid light actually cleanses and removes the sickness and pain? whatever it is. You can do this not only for yourself, by visualizing the Medicine Buddha in the appropriate part of your own body, but you can do it for others as well by visualizing the Medicine Buddha in the appropriate part of their body or bodies. The radiation of rays of light of ambrosia and so on is the same.

This can be applied not only to physical sickness but to mental problems as well. If you want to get rid of a particular type of anxiety or stress or depression or fear or any other kind of unpleasant mental experience, you can visualize the Medicine Buddha seated above the top of your head and think in the same way as before that luminous ambrosia or liquid light emerges from his body, filling your body and cleansing you of any problem, whatever it is. 

You might think that all of this sounds a bit childish, but in fact it actually works, and you will find that out if you try it." 

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