Advice for Cancer

My very dear Jenny,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am very sorry for the long delay. It is great what you are doing. It seems you are a better practitioner than me.

Performing Medicine Buddha practice for those who are living and those who have died is the best practice for others and yourself, for your wishes to be fulfilled, for ultimate happiness as well as temporary happiness, and all your temporary needs. If you don’t already do this practice every day, then you must do it. Sometimes you can practice the longer version and sometimes the shorter one, depending on how much time you have. I am having the very long version of the Medicine Buddha practice translated, but it is not ready yet. When it is translated, then you can practice that version from time to time.

So, practice Medicine Buddha every day and rely upon Medicine Buddha. This is an essential practice for you. It is such an easy practice, but it fulfills others’ wishes and your own. It is very powerful for purifying negative karma as well as collecting extensive merit. One example of this is that offering to Medicine Buddha collects the same merit as offering to all the buddhas.

After you come home from work it would be excellent if you can recite the King of Prayers and perform Vajrasattva practice. These are both very important practices for you. You might have heard already how important Vajrasattva is. If you haven’t already, you should read my book, Teachings From the Vajrasattva Retreat, at Land of Medicine Buddha. From that you can see the benefits and how important it is.

Even if you don’t get time to do other practices, just practicing Vajrasattva at the end of the day purifies any negative karma created and makes it much lighter, so there will not be as much suffering in your future lives, and less obstacles to realizations. Otherwise, one small negative karma committed today, which is not purified, multiplies. The next day it becomes bigger, more heavy, and by the third day it triples and becomes much heavier, and so on. Then it becomes the size of a mountain, or like the size of the earth. It becomes extremely heavy negative karma. Then, for billions of years one has to be reborn in the lower realms, such as the hell realms, where it is extremely difficult to get out and to receive a higher rebirth. This makes it more difficult for you to receive a human rebirth again, it is more difficult to meet the Dharma, more difficult to practice, and more difficult to have realizations.

While one is in the lower realms one continually creates negative karma because there is no opportunity to practice Dharma, so then you have to suffer even more, and create even more negative karma. Now you can see why it is extremely important to practice Vajrasattva now.

Reciting the King of Prayers is also very important for purification and creating merit, as it contains thousands of bodhisattvas’ prayers.

Also, it is very good to chant OM MANI PADME HUM. You could do this with the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation or with any other prayer. If you recite 10 malas of OM MANI PADME HUM a day, it is said that when you breathe, anybody who is touched by your breath has their negative karma purified and will receive a good rebirth. So, when it is windy, if you face the wind and breathe into it you can bless it. Anyone who is then touched by that wind has all their negative karma purified. If you swim in the water, because your body is blessed by chanting the mantra, it blesses the water and purifies all the beings that live in the water and they receive a higher rebirth. Also, when you touch someone their negative karma is purified.

The goal of our life is to be able to enlighten many sentient beings. Therefore, it is extremely important to develop compassion for all living beings, to take full responsibility to free them from samsaric sufferings and lead them to full enlightenment, and for all beings to enter the Mahayana path to eliminate the gross and subtle defilements and achieve full enlightenment.

If you can’t recite 10 malas a day then do whatever you can, with a minimum of one mala a day, but more is better.

My suggestion regarding your daily practice is for you to practice guru yoga. This is very important. It helps you to actualize the path. I suggest Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, which has a lamrim prayer (stages of the path to enlightenment). Each time you recite a lamrim prayer it becomes a direct meditation on the path to enlightenment, and plants the seed for the whole path to enlightenment each day. So, each time you recite a lamrim prayer it brings you closer to enlightenment and closer to enlightening all sentient beings. It brings you closer to freeing all sentient beings from samsaric suffering. In this way, you direct your life toward enlightenment every day, as well as enlightening all sentient beings, just by reading a lamrim prayer.

The purpose of your life is to benefit others. The best way that you can benefit others by freeing them from suffering and bringing them to enlightenment is for you to be enlightened. In order to be able to do this quickly you need to practice Tantra. I checked which deity you had a connection with and your deities are Secret Hayagriva and Cittamani Tara—you can choose from these two the deity with whom you feel the strongest connection.

No matter how difficult your life becomes, try to continue doing these practices: Medicine Buddha, Chenrezig (reciting mani mantras), Vajrasattva practice, and King of Prayers, as well as Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga with a lamrim prayer. These are the practices that I suggest for you.

It is very good to look at your health problems, as well as obstacles in your life, as positive. In this way, they become Dharma practice. When you perform service for others with very strong compassion, or when you practice with strong devotion, it purifies past negative karma. One proof that negative karma is purified is that you don’t experience the suffering result in the lower realms, which is very heavy suffering, but instead experience some sickness or obstacle now. Instead of experiencing the suffering in your future lives, you experience it much earlier, in this life, in the form of health problems or an obstacle, such as people criticizing you, headaches, bad dreams, etc. In this way, the negative karma is purified.

So, your having this sickness is proof that you don’t have to experience the heavy suffering of samsara, such as being born in the hell realms, being lost for billions of years or eons in the lower realms. Because of this sickness you don’t have to experience that. So, having these problems in this life and in this form is an incredible blessing. You should feel that it is an incredible success, not suffering at all, just a blessing.

Sometimes, thinking in this way is better, especially if your illness is incurable. In this way, use your health problems and obstacles to develop bodhicitta. Think that this suffering has been given to me, caused by my ego, the self-cherishing thought, as well as other delusions such as anger, attachment, etc. So, one’s own mind created this karma, which becomes negative because of the self-cherishing thought. Negative karma you created in the past, through the self-cherishing thought, has returned, circled back onto you, and now you are experiencing the suffering result.

Instead of taking this on yourself, you return this back to your self-cherishing thought, and use it as a weapon to destroy the ego. Give it to your ego and think that your ego is completely destroyed and eliminated. This is extremely powerful because the self-cherishing thought is the enemy of bodhicitta. The less self-cherishing your thoughts, the more you have bodhicitta, the thought of benefiting others and cherishing others.

The other way to use your sickness to develop bodhicitta is by practicing the meditation called “taking and giving.” With compassion, you perform the meditation of taking numberless sentient beings’ sufferings and the causes of that suffering onto yourself. Visualize that you take all of this onto your ego and self-cherishing thought, and think that they become totally empty and non-existent. Also, you can think that the “I” that appears to exist from its own side, with its own nature, becomes totally non-existent. Try to meditate on that as much as you can. Then, generate loving kindness by performing the practice of giving. Offer your body to others, think that it is a wish-fulfilling jewel; give all your merits of the three times to all sentient beings in each realm, think that their realms become pure lands, they receive all pure enjoyments, whatever they need, whatever they want, and this causes them to eliminate all defilements, and they all become enlightened. Visualize them as the Compassionate Buddha or any other buddha.

Each time that you perform the practice of taking sentient beings’ suffering onto yourself and give all your merits of the three times, up to enlightenment, your body, and wealth to all sentient beings, you collect so much merit. More merit means that you are closer to enlightenment, so this means you are closer to enlightening sentient beings. This practice is a very powerful purification practice that brings you closer to enlightenment. In this way, you use all your problems, experiencing sickness, and so forth to actualize bodhicitta and bring happiness to all living beings.

Regarding falling asleep while practicing, it helps to adopt the seven-point meditation posture. However, it is not necessary to sit in that position when you meditate on the lamrim. You can meditate on the lamrim when you are walking, lying down, or in any position, although it is good to sit in the seven-point posture if you can, as keeping your back straight helps you to not fall asleep. For some meditations, especially Tantra, you do need to sit in that position. Also, if you are having problems with falling asleep when you meditate, then put some cold water on your head, have a cold drink, wear light clothes on the upper part of your body, etc. Sometimes, when you are very tired and don’t have much energy, then you can go out in the garden. You can also meditate when you are relaxing on the beach. Meditation does not only mean that you have to be sitting on your meditation cushion.

Also, you can chant mantras and meditate while you are standing up. If you have many Buddha statues, pictures, texts, tsa-tsas, and holy objects, then you can put them all on a table and circumambulate the table while doing your practice and reciting mantras, such as the Vajrasattva mantra.

Please read the Lamrim Chenmo (Lama Tsongkhapa’s commentary on the stages of the path). Also, please read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche.

With much love and prayers...