Excerpt from "Ultimate Healing" by Lama Zopa

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cjdevries
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Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2015 8:06 pm

Excerpt from "Ultimate Healing" by Lama Zopa

Post by cjdevries »

Here is a brief excerpt from the book Ultimate Healing, by Lama Zopa. I am posting this because I found the information contained in this passage particularly helpful.

"While some people can be healed by drinking blessed water or taking other blessed substances, doing meditation, reciting mantras, or using conventional medical treatment, others cannot be helped by these simple means because they have heavy obstacles. Even if a doctor accurately diagnoses a disease and prescribes what should be the correct treatment, there is no guarantee that the person will recover. The treatment will not work if the person has many heavy obstacles. The person will have to put some effort into doing some purification practice. Only then can there be a cure.

Take one of my uncles, for example. For many years he could not sleep because he was in so much pain. He tossed and turned all night. Even though he went to Tibet and consulted many doctors, nothing helped. Finally, he went to see a meditator who lived in a cave not far from the Lawudo Cave.

The meditator used divination to check my uncle's condition and then advised him that his disease was karmic. Of course, disease and every other problem that we experience is the result of our own negative karma, but the meditator meant that in my uncle's case simply taking medicine would not be sufficient to cure the problem and that he would need to do some practice of purification. He advised my uncle to recite hundreds of thousands of Vajrasattva mantras, a particular aspect of Buddha that brings powerful purification, and to do hundreds of thousands of prostrations. Just as doctors specialize in a particular field- a cardiologist specializes in curing heart problems, for example- different Buddhas have special functions; Vajrasattva specializes in purification. The practice of Vajrasattva and prostrations were recommended to enable my uncle to purify the actual cause of his disease, his past negative actions and the imprints left by them on his mind. Purifying the mind purified physical disease because physical problems come from the mind.

My uncle did some of these practices in Lawudo Cave, then later built a small hermitage high on a rocky mountain. For the next six or seven years he was doing these practices, he also took care of my grandmother, who was very old and blind. During all those years, he cooked her food and carried her outside to go to the toilet. As soon as he began the practices, his condition started to improve, and he gradually became healthier and healthier. In the end he recovered completely.

Even though medicine or blessed substances generally benefit people, they do not work with certain individuals who heavy obstacles prevent recovery. Those who cannot be cured through such simple means have to use other methods, such as meditation or purification practices. After they do some practice, the recommended medicine is often able to work."
"Please call me by my true names so I can wake up; so the door of my heart can be left open: the door of compassion." -Thich Nhat Hanh

"Ask: what's needed of you" -Akong Rinpoche

"Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents, never revenges itself." -Gandhi
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