Advancing Prostate Cancer
This advice about Medicine Buddha practice was sent to a student who had prostate cancer that was progressing.
Rinpoche checked and in his observation Medicine Buddha practice immediately came out as excellent. The student shouldn’t do the Medicine Buddha practice with the motivation of just purifying himself or getting rid of the cancer from himself alone—just thinking of this body in this life is a very, very small thing. He should think of all sentient beings and do this practice for the benefit of all living beings. After all, this body just finishes very shortly; it won’t last very long anyway. This is an opportunity to benefit countless, endless sentient beings, so with the bodhicitta motivation—to bring all living beings of the six realms to enlightenment—for that purpose to do this Medicine Buddha practice.
Rinpoche said to use the Medicine Buddha sadhana and recite the long mantra once or twice, but mainly to recite the short mantra. The student should try to recite one thousand of the short Medicine Buddha mantras every day.
Rinpoche is not sure what initiations the student has received. If he has received a Highest Yoga Tantra initiation then the full visualization can be done, but if he has not received that he can do the practice accordingly. Rinpoche thinks he must have had some initiation, then he can follow the visualization of purifying the six-realm sentient beings and purifying himself of the four things (sickness, spirit harm, negative karma and defilements) that have been collected since beginningless rebirth. He can do this visualization while reciting the mantra. Rinpoche again emphasized that he should do the visualizations as best he can, purifying the six-realm sentient beings and purifying the four things for himself.
At the end of the practice, it’s important to always make a proper dedication, dedicating the merits so that whenever death happens, without difficulty we will be reborn in the pure land of Medicine Buddha where we can become enlightened, or at least to receive a perfect human rebirth, meet the Mahayana teachings and a Mahayana guru who can lead us on the unmistaken path to full enlightenment, and to do this by pleasing most the mind of the holy guru.
Rinpoche always wants to send very special greetings and his prayers and love to this student. Rinpoche is just expressing how much he appreciates the student’s kindness and generosity in supporting the Dharma, particularly His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Rinpoche. Rinpoche appreciates what the student is doing to help others very, very, very much.