Medicine Buddha Practice

The Medicine Buddha (Sangye Menla in Tibetan) is the manifestation of the healing energy of all enlightened beings. Performing this prayer practice is very powerful for healing the mental and physical ills of ourselves and others. Through these prayers and visualizations, we are able to overcome both the outer and inner illnesses of the Three Poisons which are attachment/greed, hatred/anger, and ignorance/delusion. Additionally, by doing this Medicine Buddha practice, we may purify our negative karma.

The root cause of our suffering is delusion/ignorance of how things really are. The other causes of suffering, the afflictive emotions, arise from that ignorance. By the resultant calming of our mind from doing this Medicine Buddha practice, we accomplish mental purification which, in turn, will purify the body. In this way, we are able to benefit ourselves and others.

The Medicine Buddha is visualized as the deep blue color of lapis lazuli. He wears the three robes of a monk. In his left hand he holds a bowl filled with wisdom nectar and his right hand holds a stem of the arura or myrobalan healing plant.

We then chant his mantra. Mantra means mind protection, which leads to peace and clarity. By saying his mantra with devotion, we can also close off the possibility of rebirth in the lower realms.

With this powerful Medicine Buddha practice, we make the fervent wish that all sentient beings may be free from mental and physical sickness and attain perfect enlightenment.

Holy Mantra of Medicine Buddha

TADYATHA OM BEKHANDZE BEKHADZYE MAHA BEKHANDZYE
RADZA SAMUDGATE SVAHA

The following recited, then the mantra

Bhagavan, with equal compassion for all. Whose name when just heard dispels lower realms suffering? Dispeller o璘sease and the three poisons (ignorance, hatred, and attachment), I prostrate to the Medicine Buddha Lapis Light

Tadyatha means “like this” (Thus have I heard)

Om is composed of the three pure sounds that signify the holy body, speech, and mind

Bekhandzye means “eliminating pain” What eliminates pain is medicine. But this is not ordinary pain: the first elimination is the pain of true suffering; the second is the true cause of suffering. The medicine is to take two paths that are part of the path to enlightemnent.

Maha Bekandze means “great eliminating of pain” and refers to the graduated path of the higher capable being, which eliminates the subtle defilements. So Bekhandzye Bekhandzye Maha Bekhandzye contains the whole path to enlightenment: the ultimate medicine.

Radza means “king.”

Samudgate means “he who has come forth.”

Svaha means establishing a foundation in the heart, the blessing, the devotion from which the realization comes.

So the Medicine Buddha mantra implies that, by actualizing the path contained in Bekhandzye Bekhandzye Maha Bekhandzye – the whole Lam Rim, or graduated path to
enlightenment – a person is able to cease all defilements (both gross and subtle) and purify and transform the ordinary body, speech, and mind into the Vajra holy body, speech,and mind.  After this, one is able to do perfect work for sentient beings

Provided by Khenpo Karten Rinpoche as a handout at the Manjushri Dharma Center recently.  Author unknown.  Download a PDF of the commentary on Medicine Buddha practice here, and the meaning of the Medicine Buddha mantra here.