DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE

By Nhat Quan

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          In Buddhist tradition, the original and first healer is the Buddha. Often called the Medicine Buddha, it was the Medicine Buddha who revealed the sacred teachings encapsulated in the scriptures known as the Four Medical Tantras. All Buddhist medicine originates from this sacred collection of scriptures.

          The Medicine Buddha is the ruler of the Lapis Lazuli Pure Land in the East, also known as the Vajra Buddha. Offering to the Medicine Buddha can cure hundreds of diseases and eliminate the root causes of suffering.

          He has one face, two hands, and a body of lapis lazuli color. The Medicine Buddha sits in the Vajra posture, on a lotus throne. He possesses 32 auspicious marks and 80 beautiful features. He wears three robes of liberation. His right hand, in the gesture of giving, holds medicinal herbs; With his left hand open, he holds a bowl containing divine medicine, which he uses to eradicate countless ailments and sufferings, fulfilling all the wishes of sentient beings. To his left is the Bodhisattva Sunlight, and to his right is the Bodhisattva Moonlight. The Medicine Buddha made twelve great vows to save all sentient beings from their sufferings. The true nature of these illnesses and sufferings stems from fundamental ignorance. He helps sentient beings escape the cycle of birth and death; he is revered as the Great Medicine King Buddha or the King of Goodness. Practicing the mantra of the Medicine Buddha can eliminate all incurable diseases of the body and mind, root afflictions, and accomplish worldly good deeds and transcendental Buddhist practices.

          Once, the Medicine Buddha sat in meditation, surrounded by his disciples, including physicians, wise men, celestial kings, and Bodhisattvas, all wishing to learn about his healing methods. They were all silent, captivated by the Buddha's radiant and majestic aura, and dared not speak. Knowing their aspirations, the Medicine Buddha emitted two rays of light:

          - The first ray of light was a request to learn the Dharma,

          - And the second ray of light explained this Dharma.

          Thus, this sutra was spoken, and the Medicine Buddha explained various physical and mental illnesses, their causes, diagnoses, and treatments. Furthermore, the Buddha understood the aspirations of his disciples without them having to express them. This demonstrates the Buddha's boundless compassion for his disciples.

          Healers like the Buddha are called great physicians, not only because of their ability to heal but also because of their compassion and wisdom to diagnose and treat the root cause of the illness, whether physical or mental. Therefore, in art, the image of the Medicine Buddha is depicted in golden yellow, although other features remain blue. In every image, the Medicine Buddha's left hand rests on his thigh in a meditative mudra, holding an iron bowl. His right hand is open, as if bestowing a gesture of generosity, and a willow branch in Vietnamese, myrobalan, a Tibetan medicinal herb. This is a very common medicinal fruit in Tibetan medicine, and here symbolizes the powerful regeneration of the plant world.

          However, Buddhist medicine not only applies medicine to treat the external symptoms of illness, but also uses spiritual practice and enlightenment to heal the root cause of human ailments, and each of us can heal ourselves in this way. Therefore, the Medicine Buddha is often depicted surrounded by various fragrant medicinal herbs, in Tibetan medicine, with countless celestial kings and Bodhisattvas. This drawing is called:

          - The Eastern Pure Land

          This Pure Land symbolizes an ideal universe where all the remedies for every ailment exist. The Medicine Buddha also said:

          - Every sentient being existing in the world system has a path to liberation.

          It was because of this conviction that a fashion and beauty consultant was diagnosed with cancer. Upon learning of her cancer, she sent a message to a friend studying at the Vajrapani Institute in California, asking about healing practices. Her friend advised her to buy animals about to be killed and release them in a safe place, allowing them to live longer. This kind and absolutely faithful woman saved many animals from slaughter. She released two or three thousand animals, mostly chickens, fish, and earthworms. She took the chickens to a livestock farm and released the fish into the river. She bought two thousand earthworms because they were cheap and easy to find, and she released them in her garden.

          Releasing earthworms is a very good idea because when released, they quickly burrow into the ground. Living in the garden, they are not killed by other creatures and thus live longer. Other animals released into forests, lakes, or seas are not guaranteed to live longer because they always have natural enemies. It is said that after practicing animal release for a while, she felt better, then went to the hospital for a check-up, and the doctors found no trace of cancer.

          Whether true or false, this is not surprising to those who believe in the law of karma. These are the words of the venerable monks:

          - No debt in the universe does not have to be paid. The universe has a very perfect system of accounting, and everything is an exchange.

When her body recovered from illness and her mind became healthy through the path of animal release, and by helping the lives of weak animals, the woman affirmed her belief in the truth of the law of karma:

          - Karma is both the action and the result of that action.

          Thus, her actions were not magic or miracles, but rather the sowing of appropriate seeds that would bear fruit in the form of health and happiness. Indeed, if you want to create happiness in your life, you must learn to sow seeds of happiness for others. Just as the practice of ordinary Buddhists teaches you:

          - The results a person receives are the karma of the past. Everything happening right now is the result of actions you have taken before. This is an illustration of the proverb:

          - You reap what you sow.

         If you have compassion and kindness, you will always avoid harming others, and this in itself is a form of healing. According to Buddhist belief, a compassionate person is the most miraculous healer, not only healing their own illnesses or solving their own problems, but also healing others. Therefore, there is a saying among people:

          - A good doctor is like a loving mother.

         Therefore, most people agree that in hospitals, where disease is rampant and patients are suffering, with the friendly smile and encouraging words of the doctor, the patient will feel less pain and recover faster. In fact, it is compassion that heals the disease. Once compassion radiates from the depths of a person's heart, it is this love that creates good health. According to the venerable monks:

          - The Medicine Buddha is the spiritual pharmacist.

          Discovering the latent healing power within yourself is the path to the pure land of the master of antidotes. Furthermore, through practice, your body has the ability to heal itself of any disease. Because each plant, each herb, each antidote has its complement within the subtle core of the human body. You not only have the ability to heal yourself, but also to heal those around you. Because a person with a compassionate heart, who cares about life and vows to practice the Medicine Buddha Dharma, becomes someone with extraordinary healing abilities. This ability is only achieved when you accept sacrificing your private life, worrying about the suffering of others, enduring suffering like others, and feeling their pain. Cultivating these feelings of empathy will increase compassion and pity. Only in this way can you mobilize the unlimited healing power hidden deep within your boundless consciousness. There is a story about a Zen abbot who attained healing power through compassion. One day, while he was teaching his disciples, he suddenly cried out:

          - Ouch, it hurts so much!

          When his disciples asked him what was wrong, he said that a dog was being beaten outside the temple gate. When they went outside, they saw an angry man beating a dog with a stick. When the man was called inside the monastery, the abbot pulled down his robe to show him the bruises and cuts on his back, exactly where the dog had been beaten. This is the unifying quality that an ideal healer should possess. Buddhist tradition identifies the Medicine Buddha as the ideal healer and emphasizes that the most powerful healing power lies within you.

         The path to liberation must go through practice, especially meditation. By meditating and visualizing the Medicine Buddha before you, you can face the Medicine Buddha and see his radiant, compassionate smile towards the universe and his gentle eyes filled with loving-kindness towards all beings. Next, from the heart of the Buddha, a brilliant radiance emanates, and this light gently permeates your heart. The heart here signifies the essence of nature, located deep within your chest, not merely a physical machine that pumps blood. This core is defined as follows:

          - Within yourself, there is stillness and a sacred sanctuary where you can retreat at any time to practice prayer and quiet solitude.

          This sacred sanctuary is the simple awareness of comfort, undisturbed by any disturbance. There is no fear and no suffering. A practitioner needs to find this mental space to heal their ailments. This is not through words or linguistics. It is a truly unexpected feeling, a free understanding, where you experience truth without words. Truth filtered through words is constrained because you need a certain amount of time to focus on its meaning. Through symbolic experience and spiritual creation, ordinary beings like you are transformed into outstanding healers. This is how you communicate with the Medicine Buddha, the greatest physician.

          Therefore, physicians, especially those who have faith in Buddhism and believe in the above ideals, practice the Medicine Buddha method and invoke the Medicine Buddha before prescribing medicine, prescribing medication, or giving it to patients, reciting the Medicine Buddha's mantra. The mantra, in its long form, is:

          Namo bhagavate bhaiśajyaguru vaidūryaprabharājāya tathāgatāya arhate samyaksambuddhāya tadyathā: oṃ bhaiśajye bhaiśajye bhaiśajya-samudgate svāhā.

          This mantra is taken from the Sutra of the Medicine Buddha, Lapis Lazuli Light Tathagata's Original Vows and Merits. According to the sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha said that if one recites this mantra 108 times with pure water and then drinks it, all illnesses will be cured immediately.

Furthermore, those who recite this mantra throughout their lives will be cured of illnesses and live long lives, and upon death will be reborn in the Pure Land of Lapis Lazuli. However, it should be known that this mantra is called the Consecration Mantra because it was spoken from the Buddha's crown of light. Whoever recites this mantra and purifies their three karmas, body, speech, and mind, will have the Buddha's light shine upon their crown, refreshing them like the pouring of nectar.

          Know that the Buddha's light is different from the light of demons. The light of demons is dazzling and frightening, while the Buddha's light is cool and joyful. Therefore, whoever recites this mantra or chants the Buddha's name must clearly distinguish between these two kinds of light. Do not mistake the flickering light of demons before your eyes, like a non-believer looking at a candle or incense stick, for seeing the true nature of reality.

          This symbolic action points to the practice and the sacred energies that created the mantra, giving the medicine its healing power. Similarly, by consciously walking the right path of karma, you can imbue your life with nectar flowing from good actions through the cultivation of virtue.

In the practice of the Medicine Buddha Dharma, venerable monks recite mantras during their sessions to eliminate karmic obstacles and increase blessings. As has been mentioned before. The meaning of the word "Mantra" is the secret language of the Buddhas, called Secret Language or Buddha Language. This special language is only heard and understood by the Buddhas in the ten directions; it is not the ordinary language used by sentient beings in the three realms. Therefore, ordinary people cannot fully understand this language. Those who wish for the blessings of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the ten directions only need to practice the instructed mantras to receive their wishes. Esoteric Buddhism has many types of mantras, each with its own purpose, but usually only a few are chosen for recitation in ceremonies such as prayers for peace, prayers for the deceased, repentance, etc. These include the Shurangama Mantra, the Great Compassion Mantra, and ten other mantras called the Ten Mantras. The meaning and purpose of these mantras may be related to specific historical factors or archetypal deities, or they may not be related to these things. Examples

          Mantras associated with the historical Buddha are:

           - Om muni muni mahamuni Shakyamuni svaha,

          Mantras associated with the deity Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva are:

          - Om mani padme hum,

          Or:

          Mantras containing Prajnaparamita, which is associated not only with an enlightened being but also with a famous sutra, the Prajnaparamita Sutra, that is, perfect wisdom, are:

          - Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha

          Mantras are powerful single syllables or sequences of sounds. These sounds contain a series of sound waves and energy. When recited, mantras not only help to eliminate illness, afflictions, and karmic obstacles but also have the power to connect and unite our minds with higher levels of consciousness. Thus, mantras are the direct key to revealing the outer and inner universe, a quick, gentle, and effective tool for accessing sacred energies from higher dimensions of consciousness. The power of a mantra depends on your state of practice and inner realization, and especially on the guidance and instruction from an enlightened spiritual master.

          Mantras are a combination of sacred seed syllables that emit positive spiritual energies; therefore, they are not prayers but the profound essence of reality, so sometimes you recite them as if chanting. In Sanskrit, Mantra is a compound word:

          - Man means thought.

          While the word:

          - Tra means liberating oneself from the material world.

          The combination of these two words creates Mantra, meaning the mind is liberated and protected, also known as the Protection of the Mind.

          Secret and sacred mantras express fundamental sounds and energy essences to bring about harmony between body and mind. Chanting a mantra brings extraordinary healing energy and helps you achieve balance between body and spirit, just as food nourishes the body, so too does the mantra nourish and heal the soul. In this way, mantras are powerful spiritual support; they are not just conventional sounds but a resonance of subtle, primordial energies already present within each of you. When you chant a mantra, the sound waves resonate, emitting gentle healing energies throughout your body and mind. From a spiritual perspective, mantras are a means of communication, connecting Buddhas and Bodhisattvas with sentient beings to purify karma and bring about enlightenment for all living beings

          In terms of method, generally, when you first begin reciting a mantra, you should recite it to clearly hear the sound you are reciting, so that the sound waves of the mantra spread deeper into your heart, and ultimately, you can abide in tranquility, allowing the inner transcendental sound to silently operate within yourself. From a practical standpoint, this is extremely important. Therefore, venerable masters often teach that there are some mantras that you must recite silently within yourself. However, there are some mantras that are not permitted to be recited without receiving empowerment or oral transmission from a master who has practiced them. In this case, you need to receive formal guidance on how to use the mantra. The reason why spiritual masters need to transmit mantras to their disciples is that when an enlightened master recites and transmits mantras orally to their disciples, it is also a continuous transmission of blessings and grace, enabling the disciples to have the ability to continue practicing the mantra and achieve enlightenment. As a result, the power and merit of mantra practice will grow exponentially.

In Buddhist practice, many things can be used as objects of meditation, such as breath used for mindfulness, awareness while walking used for walking meditation, emotions used for concentration in developing compassion, and visualization of images and objects used in contemplative meditation.

          Today, countless people are admitted to hospitals every day, awaiting emergency treatment, many of them very young, some even unmarried. Their fortunes, careers, wealth, and possessions are gradually lost, and most are left with lasting disabilities; some are bedridden, suffering until death. Only a few, with rare luck and merit, recover even a small percentage.

          In the past, cancer was rarely heard of. Even when it did occur, it was very rare, affecting only the elderly. Today, if you go to the Oncology Center, you'll find wards and departments packed with patients suffering from all kinds of diseases: Leukemia, brain and spinal cord cancer, laryngeal cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer, colon cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, spinal tuberculosis, bone cancer, etc., etc.

          Not only the elderly but also newborn babies and teenagers are affected. They endure so much pain through repeated surgeries to remove tumors and cells from their bodies, but ultimately, they don't live much longer. In addition, humanity today is also plagued by the HIV-AIDS pandemic, Hepatitis B and C viruses, Japanese encephalitis, diabetes, and heart disease. That's in the human world; among animals, there are epidemics like mad cow disease, foot-and-mouth disease, and swine flu. Poultry and birds are facing life and death due to the H5N1 pandemic, and humans are suffering from many other diseases that cost a fortune. Even with the right doctors and medicine, repeated treatments fail to cure the illness. This is because sentient beings are paying the karmic consequences of evil deeds committed in past lives. So what should you do now?

          Calm your mind and reflect on cultivating your three karmas:

          - Body, speech, and mind

Be kind, upright, and pure. Do many good deeds and avoid evil. Have deep faith in karma, meaning that evil deeds will result in evil consequences, and good deeds will result in good consequences. If there are no consequences in this life, there will be in the next. Therefore, repent and atone for past mistakes, worship the Medicine Buddha, and always recite:

          - Namo Medicine Buddha, the King of Lapis Lazuli Light

          If possible, you should always recite the Buddha's name and mantra from memory. Every day and night, no matter what you are doing, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, recite the name of the Medicine Buddha and the mantra above, and after drinking the medicine, the Medicine Buddha will secretly bless you, making the medicine more effective, your illnesses will gradually improve, your merits and wisdom will increase, your lifespan will be extended, and you will be spared from harm.

          The reason why reciting the name of the Medicine Buddha brings miraculous results and benefits is that the aspirations of all Buddhas in general, and the Medicine Buddha in particular, are to save sentient beings. Therefore, when sentient beings remember them, they provide unconditional protection, hence the saying:

          - "Where there is a request, there is a response."

          Similarly, radio and television stations have widespread coverage; if you want to turn on a radio or TV channel, that frequency will respond to your wishes. Similarly, spiritually, if you have a sincere aspiration towards a particular Saint, the grace of that Saint will respond to your devotion. If you are suffering from illness and have a sincere aspiration directed towards:

          - "Namo Medicine Buddha, who dispels calamities and prolongs life,"

          Then the Medicine Buddha will miraculously radiate divine power to save you, avert misfortune, and eliminate karmic obstacles. After leaving this temporary physical body, if you wish to go to the Medicine Buddha Pure Land, you can. If you don't wish to go to the Medicine Buddha Pure Land and instead wish to go to the Western Pure Land, eight Great Bodhisattvas will directly guide you there.

          In short, the Medicine Buddha Pure Land is certainly no less superior than the Amitabha Pure Land. The Eastern Pure Land is also extremely excellent, an ideal place to pray for rebirth. A special feature is that the method of praying for rebirth in the Eastern Pure Land is reciting the Medicine Buddha mantra.

          The Medicine Buddha has a connection and closeness to the Saha world. He is the Supreme Physician, compassionate and merciful to all beings suffering from illness. Therefore, all sick people should pray to him, and so should those caring for the sick. Doctors, if they believe in and pray to the Medicine Buddha, will receive his blessings for extremely effective treatment. Besides focusing on treating illnesses, the Medicine Buddha also cares for the poor, those lacking food, clothing, and material necessities. Therefore, all acts of charity and humanitarianism in this life are within the vow of the Medicine Buddha. You can all pray to Him.

          Practicing the Medicine Buddha Dharma means doing charity work in the present, dedicating the merits of reciting the Medicine Buddha Sutra, chanting the Medicine Buddha's name, and reciting the Medicine Buddha mantra to pray for rebirth in the Eastern Pure Land and dedicating the merits to the poor, the sick, and all sentient beings in the Dharma realm; telling people about the Medicine Buddha, the miraculous aspects of the sutra, name, and mantra.

          Regardless of which Dharma you practice, you can pray to the Medicine Buddha to have fewer illnesses, less suffering, and favorable conditions for cultivation. Once you have cultivated, there are many ways to resolve karmic obstacles. The Buddha and Bodhisattvas save you, but they don't erase your karma. You resolve your own karma.

 

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