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Medicine Buddha

SileSile Veteran
edited December 2011 in Buddhism Basics
Here's the version I had mentioned in the other thread - I find it really beautiful on its own (without background music), but this background music is quite sweet (to my ears):

Comments

  • tammtamm
    This is one of my favorites! :)
  • MamaLotusMamaLotus
    Simply wonderful! Thank you for sharing!
  • possibilitiespossibilities PNW, WA State Veteran
    (this is finally bringing me to tears. thinking of my dog who very sick)
  • SileSile Veteran
    (this is finally bringing me to tears. thinking of my dog who very sick)
    Possibilities - I'm so, so sorry to hear about your dog. My sister's kitty of 18 1/2 years just passed away a few days ago.

    Singing some Medicine Buddha for both of them now. Hope your friend will feel better very soon and recover!

  • possibilitiespossibilities PNW, WA State Veteran
    Thanks very much, @Sile. I try to keep it together so as not to upset him, but tears are good at times :-). It's been a while..... I guess compassion cuts deep - hmmm. What am I saying?? :-)
  • SileSile Veteran
    edited December 2011
    Possibilities - my own kitty, Maggie, really loved (or that's how it seemed to me, lol) listening to this mantra/music. I first found out about Medicine Buddha practice, in fact, when she went thru a mysterious illness; she made a great recovery and lived another 6 years! In her last days, she would lie peacefully near the laptop when this mantra was playing.

    And yes, I believe tears are good - it's always seemed to me that animals understand when we're sad.
  • possibilitiespossibilities PNW, WA State Veteran
    edited December 2011
    Wonderful about your kitty's recovery at the time - and I'm afraid in my pain I forgot to say I'm sorry about your sister's cat. 18 yrs! That is Old ! I bet she had a wonderful life.

    I listened to this chant again after listening to several others and AGAIN it got to me! There must be something very "soulful" in this rendition that speaks directly to one's instincts. There is also some sadness, I think, in the tune. This rendition may be more more heartfelt than another one that I also like - by Imee Ooi, who has a "heavenly" voice.

    Do you have a translation to the words? (You can tell I'm new to this :-) ) I looked but didn't come up with anything.

    Then I went back to listen to another one by Khenpo Pema Chopel Rinpoche, though they don't seem to be giving him credit:

    ---posted below, embedding didn't work....

    Thanks again for posting Medicine Buddha - it was soothing, setting up a different dimension for the day.


  • possibilitiespossibilities PNW, WA State Veteran
    edited December 2011



  • SileSile Veteran
    edited December 2011
    Yes, I don't know what it is about this version of the mantra; or maybe it's the effect of the mantra itself.

    I've seen people who are avowedly unreligious (even anti-religious) end up gravitating to the song and singing it for someone who was dying, without any sense of discomfort. I'd love to know where this particular version came from - what it's story is.

    As for the words, the meaning has been given as follows:

    Tayata: OM bekandze, bekandze, maha bekandze, radza, samungate, swoha
    Thus: OM healing suffering, healing suffering, ultimate healing of all suffering, King of Healing, perfect enlightenment, bless all

    tayata - thus
    OM - sacred sound representing body, speech and mind
    bekandze - healing suffering
    maha bekandze - ultimate healing of all suffering
    radza - king (of healing, in this case)
    samungate - perfect enlightenment
    swoha - bless all

    Note: bekandze (Sanskrit "bhishajya," almost certainly from abhi + sanj)

    The Tibetan, far from being a mispronunciation, preserves the "n" in the old "sanj" source-word.

    भिषज् bhisaj - related to English "physic," as in "physician"
  • possibilitiespossibilities PNW, WA State Veteran
    edited December 2011
    @Sile, thank you for the translation :-) - it is much appreciated. Also, I just found your post in the other thread.... wow.
  • dorjedorje
    edited December 2011
    @Sile @possibilities The version of the Medicine Buddha mantra was recorded by Khenpo Pema Chopel as a kind of teaching and blessing of protection during the SARS epidemic. The CD included a short teaching by HH Penor Rinpoche, and the mantras of 4 healing deities: Padmasambhava, Medicine Buddha, White Tara, and Parnashavari.

  • SileSile Veteran
    Thank you for this, Dorje!
  • SileSile Veteran
    edited January 2012
    Wonderful audio teachings on Medicine Buddha, by Yangsi Rinpoche

    image

    Morning: http://goo.gl/KRCx1
    Afternoon: http://goo.gl/rys9r
  • SileSile Veteran
    Interesting science on blue light and it's effect on body & mind:

    http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/27/health.blue.light.moods/
  • SileSile Veteran
    For quite a while now I've been wanting to look more closely at the imagery of Medicine Buddha. My mind seems to always wander first to the myrobalan [Tibetan arura] plant:

    image

    There are various myrobalans used in Tibetan/Ayurvedic medicine, but generally the myrobalan depicted in the Medicine Buddha imagery is said to be terminalia chebula[Sanskrit: haritaki; Tibetan: a-ru-ra]:

    image

    Design from a Tibetan medical text showing the three "rivers" of Indian, Chinese and Tibetan medicine flowing into one great lake of knowledge, from which arises the Arura, king of remedies:

    image
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    Tibetan medicine also includes the ancient Greek medical knowledge, and old Persian medical tradition. In the 1990's researchers at the Academy of Science in Tajikistan found some old manuscripts, and upon translating them, were astonished as to how relevant the ancient medical knowledge still is today.

    The film, "The Knowledge of Healing", with interviews by one of the DL's doctors, with the DL himself, and a visit to the Tibetan Medicine Institute in the Buryat Republic in Russia, is one of my favorite movies.
  • SileSile Veteran
    Tibetan medicine also includes the ancient Greek medical knowledge, and old Persian medical tradition. In the 1990's researchers at the Academy of Science in Tajikistan found some old manuscripts, and upon translating them, were astonished as to how relevant the ancient medical knowledge still is today.

    The film, "The Knowledge of Healing", with interviews by one of the DL's doctors, with the DL himself, and a visit to the Tibetan Medicine Institute in the Buryat Republic in Russia, is one of my favorite movies.
    Still haven't watched this - thank you for the reminder!
  • SileSile Veteran
    image

    Another picture showing the pink fruit
  • SileSile Veteran
    A short intro, "Healing from a Medicine Buddha Perspective," given by Za Choeje Rinpoche:

  • RebeccaSRebeccaS Veteran
    I played the first video and then my cat started puking! This does not seem right! :lol:
  • SileSile Veteran
    edited July 2012
    I played the first video and then my cat started puking! This does not seem right! :lol:
    Well--cats generally puke to be healthier and/or feel better, so...!
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    RebeccaS
    Off topic but...
    Is your photo of a common grey or a Russian blue?
  • SileSile Veteran
    edited July 2012
    Adapted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche--a brief intro to the Medicine Buddha mantra:

    Manjushri requested the eight tathagatas--Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and the seven Medicine Buddhas--to reveal a special mantra that would make their past prayers quickly come to pass, especially for those sentient beings born in the time of the five degenerations who have small merit and who are possessed and overwhelmed by various diseases and spirit harms.

    The prayers these eight tathagatas had made in the past were prayers to be able to actualize the happiness of sentient beings by attaining the path to enlightenment and pacifying various problems, to be able to see all the buddhas, and for all wishes to be quickly realized.

    In response to Manjushri's request, then, all the eight tathagatas--Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and the seven Medicine Buddhas--taught the Medicine Buddha mantra, in one voice.

    http://www.fpmt.org/images/stories/september11/medbdhasdjan04ba.pdf
  • RebeccaSRebeccaS Veteran
    edited July 2012
    RebeccaS
    Off topic but...
    Is your photo of a common grey or a Russian blue?
    She's just a common cat. We thought she might be a russian blue when we first got her because her color is so rich and uniform, but her little pads are the wrong color, so she's just a moggy :) We have two that color, though the other one has lots of little tabby stripes, and we have a full blown tabby tom cat :)

    Do you have a Russian blue? They're very beautiful cats.

  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    We had one. She too was beautiful but her favourite trick was to stretch out flat on her back on the sidewalk and lure passers-bye in to scratch her tummy wherein she promptly drew blood. We lived beside an old folks home so many of her prey had parchment thin skin coupled with memory spans too short to stop them from being victimized day after day.

    Twas a bit of a nightmare.
  • SileSile Veteran
    For visualizing the assembly:

    image
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