Healers and Healing

Student's Letter

I prostrate once, twice, three times in your presence.

I take refuge in the Guru, oh Blessed One—Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche!
I take refuge in the Buddha!
I take refuge in the Dharma!
I take refuge in the Sangha! (three times)

I offer my body, speech, and mind to you, Blessed One! I offer my experiences and practice to you, Blessed One! I offer my service to you, oh Blessed One! From the depths of my heart, Blessed One, may I ask a series of questions?

1) My family is not very supportive of what I am doing. I was brought up as a Catholic. I didn’t have much connection with Catholicism. It’s hard not telling your family what you are doing because it makes them angry. I have to almost keep my practice a secret. They constantly ask me, “Why don’t you go out and find a nice girl? Find a girlfriend, get married, have children.” How does one focus with all the distractions?

Some days I just want to leave and focus on Dharma totally, with no pressure, without all the distractions that go on. I tell myself, “Go. Run away,” but in reality it’s not going to happen because I’m too lazy. I’m attached to this life.

If I do go, who is going to imprint their minds with Dharma? Who is going to help them free themselves from suffering? From the depths of my heart, with folded hands, and my right knee on the ground, I request you, please be their refuge. I will take up whatever hardships they have to be led to you, Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

2) What is the reason why, when I talk to people who have physical and mental problems, I want to touch them on the place where they are in pain? I don’t touch them or rarely do. Then I do a very quick tonglen practice.

3) Blessed One, out of your great compassion, I request that you please bestow on me the preliminary practices and any other practices or any empowerments that I should take to be of benefit to others.

4) I work as a parking booth attendant at a hospital. What else can one do to benefit others when one is working with sentient beings? What I do now is recite the Zung of the Exalted Pure Stainless Light and the mantra taught by Buddha Droden Gyalwa Chho, wear the hat with mantras on it, recite and/or listen to the Sanghata Sutra, the Vajra Cutter Sutra, the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, the King of Prayers, Medicine Buddha puja, and the long life mantras of Tara and Amitayus. I continue to try to develop a good, open, and giving heart. I try to show compassion and patience to the customers who get angry, wishing for their success and happiness in the Dharma, to see them liberated from all their sufferings.

With my right knee on the ground, head tilted, and folded hands at my heart, “I” request that some day you will come to my country and teach Dharma to all of us. You are welcome any time [the student writes the request three times].

With folded hands I prostrate three times: May you, Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, (who is merely labeled), have a long healthy life (which is merely labeled). May whatever negative actions (which are merely labeled in dependence upon their valid bases) that we have, through the cause of your holy body, speech, and mind (which appear to be real but are empty), be completely removed (which appear to be real but are empty.) May you continue benefiting us thick-skulled sentient beings until samsara ends (which is merely labeled.)

Through whatever merits collected in the three times (which are merely labeled), may all hell realm beings, pretas, animals, humans, asuras, suras, and bardo beings (which are empty from their own side) be totally free of all their sufferings and attain perfect, complete enlightenment (which appears to be real but is empty from its own side.) May I (which is merely labeled) lead all sentient beings (which appear to be real but are empty), by myself alone. May this become just so.

Rinpoche's Response

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Sorry for the long delay in replying.  Please find attached my advice for your practices, with instructions and details. Please study this well.

It comes out very good for you to study Lama Tsongkhapa’s great lamrim (the Lamrim Chenmo). Read a little every day. Without receiving teachings or explanations on the section on emptiness, it may be difficult to understand. This section may be easier to understand if you read from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche.

Every day, practice one meditation on guru devotion until you have stable realizations, until you see the guru as all the buddhas and all the buddhas as your guru. Then, also try to do one meditation from the graduated path of the lower capable being. Train your mind in the topic of the perfect human rebirth until you have realizations, then go through the rest of the lamrim up until karma. This is the graduated path of the lower capable being. Next, focus on the graduated path of the middle capable being, then, the graduated path of the higher capable being—bodhicitta and emptiness.

Every day practice a little meditation on emptiness, using the four-point analysis or other techniques.

Please put your main effort into training in the lamrim, the three principles of the path. Next, take the great initiations and practice tantra, but that is second.

In the break time (from doing formal meditation sessions, not a break time from practice, as there should be no break time from practicing Dharma), try to make every action you do for the benefit of others, for this to be your motivation. In this way, if your motivation is to benefit others, everything you do, from kaka up to reciting mantras, becomes a cause of enlightenment. Otherwise, if you do not have this motivation, then even if you are practicing Dharma, it can become negative karma and be a cause for the lower realms. Having the motivation to benefit others is very important, which means to cause enlightenment and happiness for all sentient beings; so, this is the main thing.

Then, practice the lamrim meditations from guru devotion up to emptiness; try to meditate for a month on renunciation, impermanence and death, and the usefulness of a perfect human rebirth, etc., up to emptiness, until you have stable realizations. Do everything with the mind of lamrim, living in the lamrim. That is the main thing. Keep circling like this with the meditations until your realizations are stable.

Regarding your question about tonglen—practicing tonglen is excellent, the best thing. It is the most powerful purification for you and also for collecting extensive merit. It is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment and to be able to liberate numberless sentient beings in each realm from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. Definitely, my suggestion is to practice tonglen. This can be like chöd practice: giving, making charity, of one’s body to spirits. You transform your body, all the white and red substances, and give them to the spirits. The white substances are transformed into nectar and you give them to the spirits, and the red substances are transformed, and you give them to the spirits as a feast.

This is very powerful for purification; this is also part of lamrim practice, from the section on bodhicitta. This practice of giving yourself to spirits is also an antidote to self-cherishing.

Often, sicknesses are connected to spirit harm; of course this comes from negative karma, created from the person’s side. This is the case unless the person is a bodhisattva or higher bodhisattva arya being, or Buddha manifesting, who is not actually sick, but just showing this for sentient beings. Anyway, if the sickness is caused by spirit harm, then many times hospitals and doctors are not able to heal the person, even if they do everything correctly. They are only treating the external sickness, they don’t know about treating the spirit that is causing the condition for the sickness. One way to treat it is to perform pujas that relate to the spirit that causes the sickness, the disease, or performing pujas to control nagas, etc. These practices are connected to deities who protect sentient beings from naga harm and spirit harm. By doing them the person can be healed. This is proof that the sickness is caused by spirits or nagas—this is from my own experience.

If you give yourself to the spirit that is harming that person, this can have a great effect in healing the person who is being harmed. This is a very good, excellent thing, and shows that you are a very pure Dharma practitioner. Totally giving up yourself to the spirit, on behalf of the patient, can help, it is a most excellent, happiest practice. This practice is a very strong antidote to self-cherishing; you are really stomping with your feet on the self-cherishing thought, like crushing the ego, the self-cherishing thought, under your feet. This is an excellent practice.

Also, you can use emptiness. This is the antidote to ignorance, which is the root of samsara: the ignorance holding the “I” as truly existent. Give yourself to the spirits and then look at yourself as empty, also look at the action as empty. I don’t mean empty as in not there, but as not existing from its own side. Also, the act of giving is empty from its own side, the being to whom you are giving is also empty. In this way, meditate on emptiness after giving to the being.

If you actually get sick after healing someone, that is a very good sign. It is a sign that you have helped the other person; it is a sign of success. Think: May my experiencing the sickness be beneficial for all sentient beings. In this way, perform the practice of tonglen, receiving all sentient beings’ sufferings and their causes, also the sicknesses. Each time you think, “I am experiencing this is on behalf of all sentient beings” you collect numberless merits. Then rejoice: How fortunate I am, I have received all the sufferings and experienced all the sufferings of all sentient beings; may they be free from all sufferings.

Regarding your question about your family not liking what you are doing, think that you have done something that other people didn’t like in the past. It is good to remember that this is the result of past negative karma, created with the self-cherishing thought. This is karma returned to oneself. Therefore, now, this is the time to practice bodhicitta, cherishing other sentient beings. The conclusion is to think: This time I won’t cherish the “I,” I won’t work for myself, I will work for others. Also, think that this is karma, the wheel of sharp weapons, karma returning back to you.

In this way, one turns on one’s ego, the self-cherishing thought, and totally extinguishes it. Now it is time to bomb, to totally crush, the enemy, the great demon, one’s self-cherishing thought, that has prevented oneself from achieving enlightenment, from achieving liberation for oneself. This is what has caused you to be born in samsara and to experience the oceans of suffering in each realm. Think: If I fail here, I will continue to be reborn in samsara endlessly and in the future will have no attainments.

You can also use this to think about karma, how the root of samsara is ignorance, the concept of true existence, and how all suffering comes from that. Think how this is totally nonexistent, how the real “I” exists, how it appears to exist from its own side, and how it is totally non-existent and empty. You can think it is like what happens in a dream—your dream family dislike you.

When I mentioned before about giving yourself to the spirit in order to make the spirit happy, so they receive you in place of harming the other person, when you do this, you can think that you are giving yourself as a gift to the spirit, and in return you ask it not to harm the other person. In this way, you make the spirit happy, satisfied, and it doesn’t harm the other person.

If you come across people who have a lot of pain, I have found it can help if they can recite the Vaishali Sutra (this is available to download from FPMT website, also the phonetics). This sutra relieves people from pain. When a person has the karma, then definitely this sutra can help; it can be a miracle, amazing.

In regards to actually touching people to heal them, of course, if your motivation is pure, such as compassion, and if the other people accept, then it’s OK. You can visualize the syllable AH in the nature of light on the palm of your hands, and when you press on the place on the person’s body where they feel pain, think that you are sending light from the AH and it fills up the person’s whole body with light, he or she is totally illuminated, and this purifies all the person’s sickness, spirit harm, negative karma, and defilements. The other way to think is that the AH sends out light and, like a vacuum, sucks out all the sickness, spirit harm, negative karma, and defilements. Think that comes back to you and you give this to your ego, the self-cherishing thought, and it totally destroys this. This is how you use this for the quick enlightenment of all sentient beings.

When you are pressing your hands, you can also chant mantras such as Vajra Armor mantra, Most Secret Hayagriva mantra, and Garuda mantra. Vajra Armor mantra and Most Secret Hayagriva mantra are extremely powerful. You don’t need to recite loudly, just quietly, and if the person doesn’t mind you can press harder with your hands. This can have more effect. Also, sometimes you can recite the Dependent Arising mantra. Add “Namo Ratyana” to the beginning of the Dependent Arising mantra.

You can chant these mantras and then blow over ointment that the sick person can use. Also, you can chant over butter and water that the sick person can eat and drink. With strong faith, taking refuge, then chanting a few malas of each mantra, blow over the water or cream. Then, the sick person can sip the water a few times each day and use the cream.

Sometimes hospital and doctors are unable to help. There was one student who had very severe skin problems and all the doctors and hospitals were not able to help, so I gave her some cream over which I had recited many, many Black Garuda mantras. She used the cream and her skin problem was completely healed.

According to my observation, for your quickest enlightenment, the deity you should practice is Secret Hayagriva. When the time comes, take the initiation, and in the future you can do the retreat. The other deities that you have a strong connection with are Secret Vajrapani and Gyalwa Gyatso.

Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta.

With much love and prayers,
Lama Zopa

Find the Vaishali Sutra here. To listen to the audio recording, go to FPMT Catalogue of Prayers and Practices and scroll down to find the audio link. It is called: Recitations for Alleviating Pain. The actual sutra is called: Entering the Great City of Vaishali.

Practices

• Refuge: 500,000
• Samaya Vajra: 300,000
• Dorje Khadro (burning offering): 500,000
• Guru Yoga: 100,000 (Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga)
• Tsa tsas: 200,000—divide between these four deities: Mitukpa, Tara, Heruka, Stupas

The stupas can be the small stupa that has 100 stupas on the outside. When you make the stupa tsa tsa, it is very important you put the four Dharmakaya relic mantras inside (see the booklet on this from the FPMT Education Department). This is unbelievably powerful for purification, as well as inner development and external needs.

• Diamond Cutter Sutra: Recite every month forever.
• Four immeasurable thoughts: 500,000.

Generate the four immeasurable thoughts, bodhicitta, by reciting the prayer with meditation; think of the meaning. Also, you can practice tonglen at the same time as reciting the prayer. How you do this is by reciting the words and generating the understanding of the immeasurable thought of equanimity, then practice taking. Generate the understanding of the immeasurable thought of loving kindness, then practice giving. Generate the understanding of the immeasurable thought of compassion, then practice taking. Generate the understanding of the immeasurable thought of joy, then practice giving. Practicing like this is an incredible way to practice and develop bodhicitta.

Deity Practice

• Main deity: Secret Hayagriva
• Other deities: Secret Vajrapani and Gyalwa Gyatso

This means you have a connection with all of these deities. When the time comes you can take the initiations and do the practices.

My very dear Nina,
It is very good if you can recite these mantras before doing the healing: 

• Stainless Light mantra (you can also recite this mantra while doing the healing, if appropriate)
• Mantra taught by Buddha Droden Gwayla cho
• Celestial Jewel Mansion—Great Increasing Jewel

You should recite these three mantras in the morning before you do the healings. By reciting these mantras in the morning, any person you then meet has their five uninterrupted negative karmas purified. By reciting them in the morning, it makes your whole day meaningful.

You should recite the Celestial Jewel Great Increasing mantra in the morning as part of your daily practice. Also, you can recite it to the patients.

When you are doing the healings, these are the mantras to recite out loud, so the person can hear them. You can make them into a song if you want to:

• Medicine Buddha mantra
• Chenrezig mantra
• Wish granting wheel mantra number five, in the Five Great Mantras booklet. Reciting this at least seven times or more is best.
• Stainless Pinnacle, number four in the booklet
• Maitreya Buddha mantra
• Mitukpa mantra
• Namgyalma mantra

If you can chant these in front of the person, singing a tune, it is incredibly beneficial for them. These mantras are very good for the people to hear, as the mantra purifies their negative karma, so there is much deep benefit. They can even heal the sicknesses, since through hearing the mantras it purifies their negative karma, even the five uninterrupted negative karmas. That is an unbelievable gift to those people; it is priceless and wish-fulfilling. They get to hear Dharma and that creates an imprint for their next life, to bring them to enlightenment. By chanting the mantras they receive unbelievable purification.

If they ask you what you are chanting, you can just say it is for healing and purification.

By reciting Medicine Buddha mantra, one isn’t reborn in the lower realms. This not only relates to human beings, but also to animals.

Maitreya Buddha mantra helps them to not be reborn in the lower realms, helps their mind to go to virtue, and also helps them to develop prosperity, to be reborn as one thousand wheel-turning Kings or as a deva. When Maitreya Buddha descends into this world, Maitreya Buddha will look for them, and anyone who hears this mantra will then become first disciples of Maitreya and receive a prediction of their enlightenment.

These mantras bless their body, speech, and mind, so there is no question that if you touch the patients, even if your shadow touches them (this is referring to the first three mantras), that their negative karma is purified and also helps them to not be reborn in the lower realms.

Then, if they hear the mantras (referring to the next seven mantras), it also purifies their negative karma and they aren’t reborn in the lower realms. You can see how important this is.

You don’t have to recite all the mantras, just any of these; you could do one, two, or three. The main thing is for them to hear you reciting the mantras, which creates unbelievable benefit, deep like the ocean.

With much love and prayers... 

My very dear Lorna,
Thank you for your very kind email.

Regarding your questions, I checked, and if you practice Medicine Buddha very strongly every day—recite the mantra and make strong prayers—then it comes out beneficial to train with the healer. Otherwise, if it is not combined with Medicine Buddha, it is not so beneficial.

With much love and prayers...

Medicine Buddha is extremely important, and the group can also do Amitayus long life meditation. There is a version in Chinese. There is also the White Tara long life meditation, which you can get from the Dharma center if you don’t have it. You can also do the 21 Praises to Tara, with strong meditation and prayer, then visualize the nectar coming out from the heart of the 21 Taras to those who need the healing (those who are present, those at home, and those in hospital). Also, think the light is going out to all sentient beings.

As you recite the mantras it is excellent to bless water. You do this by blowing on the water after reciting a number of mantras. The order of the session, if possible, is first do Medicine Buddha practice and then other deity meditations like thousand-arm Chenrezig. The reason for doing Medicine Buddha first is it helps to bring success for the prayers and wishes for self and others.

Find out from the geshe the best day to start the first class. You only need the date on which to begin.

If water has already been blessed from a previous session, then everyone can sip it at the beginning of the next session, particularly the patients.

It is also good to set up holy objects for people to circumambulate. This is for the patients in particular. Visualize nectar, energy, and light emanating from the holy objects to the patients, healing all disease, negative karma, spirit harm, and obstacles. It would be good to have a Medicine Buddha statue to circumambulate, if possible. Slowly, the same healing practice can be established in our other centers.

There is a collection of healing advice that you should study (I have put it together). I will let you know how you can get this information.

The most important thing for the healing to be a success is strong faith. Healing comes from the power of the mind (of those participating) and Buddha's omniscient mind and great compassion.

With much love and prayer...

My very dear one,
Thank you for your kind letter. I am sorry I did not have time to meet with you at Kopan Monastery.

Regarding your question of bridging Buddhism and healing, if you practice healing with refuge in your mind, renunciation of samsara, compassion, emptiness, and with right view, then the healing becomes Buddhism; it becomes a remedy for samsara. If you practice healing with bodhicitta, then the healing becomes a cause to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. Also, healing can be performed along with Buddhist tantric practices.

It would be very good for you to study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, also other books on the lamrim, including ones by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, philosophical books that give an overall view of Buddhism, as well as my books, The Door to Satisfaction, Transforming Problems, and Ultimate Healing.

It would be very good for you to do retreat from time to time on the lamrim and also on deities such as Chenrezig, Tara, and Medicine Buddha. Then, on top of that practice, as much as you can in your daily life, meditate on the lamrim, whenever you can, and perform all your daily activities with renunciation. Also, you can try to have right view (emptiness) and, especially, perform all your activities with bodhicitta—making your life most beneficial. In this way, you collect vast amounts of merit.

This way not only do you have intellectual understanding, and with that you can benefit others, but also through meditating and performing your daily activities with the lamrim, you can benefit others from your own experience of the lamrim. Therefore, your meditation practice is very important.

It is very good to talk about Dharma to others, especially to talk about compassion.

With much love and prayers...

A loving, compassionate person heals others simply by existing. Wherever they are, compassionate people are healing, because they do everything they can to help others with their body, speech, and mind.

Merely being near a compassionate person heals us because it brings us peace and happiness.

Thank you for your kind and compassionate support for these hospice services.