Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Medicine Buddha guided sadhana

Medicine Buddha guided sadhana

This sadhana was translated and composed by Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche.

Medicine Buddha sadhana front-generation (download)

Image of Medicine Buddha in black n white.

Medicine Buddha

Above the crown of your head, upon a lotus and moon seat is the Medicine Buddha. His body is made of blue light, and blue light radiates from him going in all directions. In the gesture of granting sublime realization, his right hand rests on his right knee and holds the stem of an arura plant. In the gesture of concentration, his left hand holds a lapis lazuli bowl filled with medicinal nectar. He is seated in the vajra posture, wears the three saffron robes of a monastic, and has the signs and marks of a Buddha.

Refuge and bodhicitta

I take refuge until I have awakened in the Buddhas, the Dharma, and the Sangha. By the merit I create by engaging in generosity and the other far-reaching practices, may I attain Buddhahood in order to benefit all sentient beings. (3x)

May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes.
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes.
May all sentient beings not be separated from sorrowless bliss.
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.

Seven-limb prayer

Reverently I prostrate with my body, speech, and mind to Guru Medicine Buddha,
And present clouds of every type of offering, actual and mentally transformed.
I confess all my destructive actions accumulated since beginningless time,
And rejoice in the virtues of all holy and ordinary beings.
Please remain until cyclic existence ends,
And turn the wheel of Dharma for sentient beings.
I dedicate all the virtues of myself and others to the great awakening.

Mandala offering

This ground, anointed with perfume, flowers strewn,
Mount Meru, four lands, sun and moon,
Imagined as a Buddha land and offered to you.
May all beings enjoy this pure land.

The objects of attachment, aversion, and ignorance—friends, enemies and strangers, my body, wealth and enjoyments—I offer these without any sense of loss. Please accept them with pleasure, and inspire me and others to be free from the three poisonous attitudes.

idam guru ratna mandala kam nirya tayami.

Requests

I request you, Bhagawan Master of Healing, whose sky-colored holy body of lapis lazuli signifies omniscient wisdom and compassion as vast as limitless space, please inspire my mind.

I request you, compassionate Master of Healing, holding in your right hand the king of medicines symbolizing your vow to help all the sentient beings plagued by the 404 diseases, please inspire my mind.

I request you, compassionate Master of Healing, holding in your left hand a bowl of nectar symbolizing your vow to give the glorious undying nectar of the Dharma, which eliminates the degenerations of sickness, aging, and death, please inspire my mind.

I prostrate, go for refuge, and make offerings to the fully realized destroyer of all defilements, completely perfected Buddha, who has realized the ultimate nature of all phenomena, Medicine Buddha, the King of Lapis Light. May your vow to benefit all sentient beings now ripen for myself and others. (3 or 7x)

Visualization and mantra recitation

In response to your request, infinite white rays of light stream down from the heart and body of the King of Medicine. Completely filling your body from head to toe, the light purifies all disease, afflictions due to interfering forces, and the negative karma and mental obscurations that cause these. All anxiety, fear, and negative emotions are also purified. These leave you in the form of dirty liquid which then completely disappears. Your body becomes the nature of light, clean and clear like crystal.

Again light from the Medicine Buddha fills your body, bringing with it the realizations of the path and all the good qualities of the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Your mind is transformed into love, compassion, and wisdom.

Visualize the Medicine Buddha on the crown of each sentient being’s head. You may think specifically of those who are suffering and in need of healing now. Do a similar visualization as above, with the light first purifying their diseases and their causes and then bringing them the realizations of the path to enlightenment.

While doing these visualizations recite the mantra as much as possible:
Tayata om bhekandze bhekandze maha bhekandze randza samungate soha

Absorption

After reciting the mantra, the Medicine Buddha melts into light and absorbs into your heart. Your mind becomes non-dual with the Buddha’s dharmakaya mind. Similarly the Medicine Buddha on the crown of each sentient being’s head melts into light and absorbs into the heart of that sentient being, bringing him or her infinite peace, compassion, and wisdom.

Dedication

Due to this merit may we soon
Attain the awakened state of Medicine Buddha,
That we may be able to liberate
All sentient beings from their sufferings.

May the precious bodhi mind
Not yet born arise and grow.
May that born have no decline,
But increase forever more.

Just as Guru Medicine Buddha with compassion guides all sentient beings,
infinite as space, may I also become a compassionate guide of all sentient beings existing in all directions of the universe.

Venerable Thubten Chodron

Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.