Failure to Thrive
A student wrote to Rinpoche explaining that her one-year-old child was not growing normally. Her letter and his response are below.
Student: Please grant me your blessings and advice on the matter of my small child. James, our second child, was born in 2005 (soon to be two years old). At that time everything was normal: weight, height, and all other standard parameters doctors look at. During the first six months he progressed OK, with no special events.
Several more months afterward we realized his progress almost stopped. During the second half of his first year he gained very little weight, height, etc. At about one year old, we were able to put him under the examination and observation of a special hospital for children. They did many tests and examined him for every fault they were able to think of. They categorized him as FTT = Failure to Thrive (a common category). This means there is a problem, but many times they don't know what it is.
Soon it will be one year since he had their tests, and so far there are no findings whatsoever. During this last year he did begin to gain some weight, at a slow pace – a few hundred grams every month, which made the doctors somewhat happy. However, during the last two months he gained no weight at all. He now weighs 8.5kg, which is the average weight of a one year old. His physical size is also of a one year old.
Rinpoche's Response
My very dear Lucy,
I checked and this is what came out best for James:
1. 100 Medicine Buddha pujas. It is best is if you can do them, also you can invite friends to join in. You can do these over a period of time.
2. Ask Sera Mey Monastery in South India to do the extensive long Medicine Buddha puja once. You need to make an offering for tea and bread for the monks who do the puja and, if you can, also a small money offering for the monks. I can give you their email address. If it’s difficult or you don’t hear from them, we can organize it, but maybe you try first. It is important to give your son’s name and specify you want the extensive Medicine Buddha puja.
3. Recite the long mantra of Medicine Buddha to purify James, to purify past negative karma, but also dedicate this for all sentient beings to be liberated from the lower realms, which has so much suffering.
I am also making prayers for James, and I asked the Sangha in my house to dedicate practices to him.
With much love and prayers...