Cured of AIDS
In 2003, during a month-long retreat at a Dharma center, a woman was admitted to hospital with AIDS-related pneumonia and vomiting. She had contracted HIV as a 17-year-old heroin user, but the virus had lain dormant until 1996, when she began to have bouts of pneumonia. She was treated with multiple-drug therapy, and had to take twenty tablets a day, but her condition had deteriorated to the point where she had a T-cell count of zero. She stopped the drug therapy after several years, because she felt that it was too strong for her body. When she wrote to Rinpoche from the hospital requesting his advice as to what practices she should do, Rinpoche wrote her the following letter.
My dear one,
Thank you for very much for your kind letter.
It came out good to take Tibetan medicine: Tchen la, three pills a day for eight weeks; rinchen drang jor chenmo, two pills a week for nine weeks. You should also take a herb called erma from Solu Khumbu in Nepal. You grind it into a powder and mix it with butter. You can spread it on bread like jam and eat it three times a day. You can also put erma in soup. Erma is very good for AIDS.
You should also recite the Padmasambhava mantra. Visualize Padmasambhava in front of you: nectar flows from his heart and enters your body and mind, it purifies all diseases, harm from spirits, negative karmas, and defilements. Perform a strong visualization and think that the AIDS is gone. With the last mala, think that you receive all the perfect qualities of Padmasambhava, especially perfect wisdom, compassion, and power. You should recite at least four malas a day.
You should also perform Medicine Buddha practice. Use the sadhana from the small booklet, the one where you visualize the deities on your crown. You should also perform the White Tara long-life meditation. There is a short sadhana from Pabongka Rinpoche.
Your everyday practice, whether you have AIDS or not, is to practice Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, to have realizations of the lamrim.
With much love and prayers...
Rinpoche also sent her a practice sheet, advising her to perform the following practices (with the added advice, “Don’t panic, this is for life.”): 40,000 Vajrasattva mantras; 100,000 water bowl offerings; 100,000 migtsema recitations; 50 recitations of the Diamond Cutter Sutra; lamrim meditation; and deity practices.
The student took the Tibetan medicine and used the erma for two months, mixing it into juice. She also recited the Diamond Cutter Sutra fifty times and began daily practices of offering 100 water bowls, reciting four malas of the Padmasambhava mantra, reciting Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga and migtsemas, and lamrim meditation. After beginning these practices, she had several powerful dreams of Rinpoche, all indicating that she was being guided and healed.
Six months later, when she went to her doctor for a checkup, the HIV virus was not detectable, and her T-cell count was 300. Her doctor said that she no longer needed to take any medicine.
When she wrote to Rinpoche to inform him of her recovery, Rinpoche wrote her the following letter.
March 2004,
My very dear one,
Thank you very much for you kind letter and gifts. I am extremely happy to hear that your AIDS is completely gone. That is extremely good, because human life is so precious and you only achieved this human rebirth through pure moral conduct in the past, that is the cause. So, now you have this precious human life, which is unbelievable, much more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel. It is like a dream, a miracle—such a precious human rebirth qualified with ten richnesses and eight freedoms, so that you can practice Dharma whenever you wish. You can practice the Lesser Vehicle path to achieve liberation from samsara; the Paramitayana path to achieve everlasting happiness, freedom forever from samsara; the bodhisattva path, which enables us to achieve full enlightenment and to enlighten numberless sentient beings and liberate them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment; and then the Tantric path, which allows you to help others to achieve enlightenment more quickly. So, this is most important reason to have a long life and precious human rebirth. Now, every day, you can plant the seed of the whole path to enlightenment; that is the reason for having a long life—it gives you the opportunity to actualize the path, or at least to leave imprints in your mind of the whole path to enlightenment. This will create the causes for you to achieve enlightenment, so that you can benefit others and bring them to enlightenment.
So, now you must spend the rest of your life practicing Dharma. Any time that you want to write please do.
With much love and prayers...
[One year later, she remained healthy.]