Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 25-minute talk, Venerable Lobsang Namgyel addresses recurring student questions about the boundaries of Medicine Buddha practice for those with and without formal initiation. He clarifies that divine pride—identifying as Medicine Buddha yourself—requires initiation; without it, practitioners should visualize Medicine Buddha above the crown and receive blessings, not claim identity with the deity. He discusses how to navigate the moment in practice when all sentient beings appear transformed into Medicine Buddha while the practitioner has not received initiation, offering ego-aware strategies rather than rigid rules. The talk then shifts to practical applications: visualizing the seven Medicine Buddhas above someone who is sick or dying; blessing water, medicine, or daily activities like showering or eating; and understanding that making karmic connections through prayer and visualization now enables genuine help later as a Bodhisattva. Suited for practitioners already familiar with Medicine Buddha practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 10 15 MBP session 3.mp3
UUID: ae415fd7-d5c3-42aa-8496-c8c13ec1e130
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: Medicine Buddha Practrice (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Date: 2011-10-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 24.7 minutes
Words: ~3,062
Yeah. You don’t become the deity. Dissolve into them. I think visualizing you become light is okay. Maybe, good to visualize that you become a rainbow body.
Rainbow light, so all the colors, and then you dissolve because then that’s something like, you know, this practice of becoming rainbow body where your body disappears and you just leave the nails and the hair behind. So it connects to that practice, and that could be a good way of, putting imprints for that to happen. I don’t think there’s a problem with that. I think the problem is with the deity, you can’t have divine pride without the initiation. So divine pride is I am the Buddha.
You know? I am I am Medicine Buddha. So the initiation gives you the ability to say, I am Medicine Buddha, whereas, just the empowerment or the the lung, the basic practice is keeping the Buddha on your crown and then just receiving the blessing from that. So I think if you’re in doubt, it’s better not to do it rather than to do it because I find what’s happening now is we’re blurring the edges between, people who have and people who don’t. And the people who don’t are now starting to do the practices as if they do, as if they have it.
And, there’s less and less respect given to boundaries. We don’t like boundaries anymore because in in Dharma, as you know, we have no boundaries. Right? Which is not true. Buddha taught karma, you know, and he taught very much do this and don’t do this.
So we’re not enlightened beings. So if we just discount karma and actions, say, oh, I can do anything. Doesn’t matter, does it? Because everything’s empty. It’s a misunderstanding of Dharma.
So I think we’re better off having these boundaries of what to do and what not to do. It stays clear. And then you don’t make a confused mind, then you have wisdom, and then you have realizations. Yeah. This is a big subject.
Yeah. Yes, dear. Yeah. I don’t know what it means, honestly. It sounds very new age to become one with.
Sounds sounds new age. I did but I don’t know what it means from a Buddhist point of view doing this practice. And I’m not sure I know what that means. It sounds nice, but I’m not really sure what what it would mean to you as a practitioner. If you become one, you become Medicine Buddha.
Indivisible. Indivisible with Medicine Buddha. Well, that’s right. Aspire to the qualities of this. That’s okay.
Yes. Well, you aspire. You have this emulation. You know, you see Medicine Buddha as an inspiration. But but if you say, I become one with Medicine Buddha, if you said that, then that would mean indivisible from Medicine Buddha, which is what your guru is.
So now you’re saying, I’m the same as my guru. So this is where you have to be very careful about words because we can say things, but then when you really think, well, what does this mean? Then if your Buddha is indivisible with the Medicine Buddha, and now you become indivisible with the Medicine Buddha, you become the same as your guru, and basically, you become enlightened, which is what you do when you have the initiation. And we need to be clear about what you can do with the initiation and what you can’t do. If you don’t have the initiation, you shouldn’t see yourself as Medicine Buddha.
You shouldn’t become one with Medicine Buddha. You know? Right. Maybe, where it comes to the end, where it says, the light rays pour down. You’re thereby transformed into the holy body of the Guru Medicine Buddha.
Right? So that’s what I said. You can’t do that unless you have the initiation. And if you have, you should do it, and then you should have the divine pride of being Medicine Buddha. It’s on page twelve of yours, and it’s the second paragraph from the top.
So there, it says you’re transformed into the holy body. So that’s what I say. If you don’t have the initiation, you should change that, and you should say, then, Medicine Buddha is still above your crown. You’re receiving the blessings of Medicine Buddha. If you have the initiation, you should become one with Medicine Buddha, and you become the guru deity.
That’s the point, is with divine pride, you do. But if you don’t have the initiation, you don’t. There’s a separation between you and Medicine Buddha. You’re still receiving the blessings of Medicine Buddha, but you are not Medicine Buddha. But then the question I brought up is, then you can look at feel great joy and think underneath the mantra.
Feel great joy and think. All sentient beings are transformed into the aspect of guru, medicine, Buddha, except for me. So how do you feel about that? Well, this this is this is another question people often bring up. I’m there with all the blessings coming to me and all sentient beings.
Does it mean they’re all enlightened and I’m the only one who’s not? And if you’re the shepherd, maybe that’s okay. And if you’re the king or the queen, it’s not okay, and you feel it’s not okay. And so you have to allow yourself to transform into Medicine Buddha because of the blessing of Medicine Buddha transforming all sentient beings. So depending on your practice, I guess, because definitely some people object to this.
Yeah. Well, it says transformed into the aspect of guru, Medicine Buddha. It means they become Medicine Buddha. If they have the qualities of Medicine Buddha, you can’t have the qualities and not be Medicine Buddha. You either are or you’re not.
Right? So if they receive all the blessing of Medicine Buddha, then you can’t say they have the qualities of Medicine Buddha, but they’re not Medicine Buddha. They either are or they’re not. No. You you have to have the label.
It makes it too complicated. You know? I think the only thing is when all sentient beings become Medicine Buddha, do you become Medicine Buddha or not? Without the initiation, at this point, at the very end, do you become Medicine Buddha or not? Right?
I think if it happens, if you happen to become Medicine Buddha, okay. You didn’t try. Just your mind produced Medicine Buddha. Everybody became Medicine Buddha, and you transformed into Medicine Buddha. But, actually, if you can, stay out of it and say, how incredible.
Because of my practice, they have all become enlightened, and that’s exactly what I wanted. I’m so happy. But if the ego arises and says, hang on a minute. You know, I’ve done all this practice, and what do I get out of it? Nothing.
Nothing. I’m telling you. You know? I’m not even a Buddha. It’s your ego.
People have it happen. Yeah. So if this arises, you see this as a play of the ego. And then so how to subdue the ego? You know?
It might be better to use the ego to transform into Medicine Buddha at the very end rather than having an ego battle. You know? For the for anybody who has an ego battle, why bother? You know? Just turn it into into Medicine Buddha.
No. Because when you turn it into Medicine Buddha, you transform it into something positive. You have ordinary pride and divine pride, and divine pride is qualities, you know, being Medicine Buddha and wanting to benefit others. So if there’s that ego battle going on, often the more you resist the ego, the worse it gets, the more difficult it becomes. And so try and find some way skillful way of transforming the situation.
All of this is about you becoming a better person. So it’s not in black and white. You know, we have our own lineages where if you go to a teacher, they might say, well, for you, you need to change it a little bit and do this. So nowadays, we we tend to have books and everything written down, and we think for everybody, it has to be the same. But, actually, for each person, it needs to be a little bit different.
You know? And I’m telling you about the objections that come up on course after course after course where you have forty people doing it for two weeks. They suddenly think, hang on it. This says everybody becomes Medicine Buddha, but I don’t. And then they have this feeling of, but there’s something wrong with that.
You know? Then what do I do with that? So this is something else to think about. And nothing else? Okay.
We’re going to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yes.
Right. Right. With you. And and you’re and you’re naked. Well well, I’m shocked, quite frankly.
So everybody’s in the shower with you, and you’re naked. So do they have clothes? They have clothes on or they’re naked also? I don’t know what to say really. The power of visualization.
They’re all looking at you longingly. It was sounding good up until there. And then? I think what you’re doing is very similar to what Lama Zopa says. He doesn’t talk about the naked bit, but he talks about switching the lights on and off and thinking switching on wisdom, turning off the darkness of ignorance.
He gives a lot of those. There’s a long list of them. So if you can use your mind in this way, if you can’t do the practice as it is, if you do this, then there’s a lot of benefit for you and for others apart from the naked thing, which I think is just quite funny. Actually, don’t think the Deborah mentioned the naked Well, she beauty in the Excuse me. She would not be in the shower totally dressed.
That’s even even weirder. You are you are turning her into a pervert. You know? She’s in there fully clothed or in a in a bikini. No.
But I often I do the same when I’m in the shower. I’m I don’t I don’t have all sentient beings with me. But I do I do the visualization of the cleansing in the shower, and that’s that feels really good to me, that you think totally cleansing, removing all negative karma and delusions and sickness. And I think you can just generically think all sentient beings are participating and also receiving that blessing. And above the car, the Medicine Buddha, I think that’s also really nice.
I think to try and include the Buddhas in your daily activities is for me, I’m not saying, for every teacher, but for me, is more important than sitting on the cushion and going blah blah blah blah blah, and then the rest of the day, you don’t do anything, in order to transform the mind. I’d rather have somebody transforming their mind all day and thinking of offering blessings to others all day rather than doing so much of the practice. The best is if you can do the practice and do this through the day. If you have a choice, do short meditation on the cushion and then do something in the day. I think it’s really inspiring to hear people doing these practices, incorporating the food, the shower, the sleep.
You know? Because these are the things we do every single day. So if you can think, now what would the shower be, the the transformation in the mind? What would be the food? What would be the sleep?
You know? Find some way of transforming these activities into virtue, and then for a lot of the day, you’re creating virtue. You can think when you’re driving driving towards enlightenment. You can think circumambulating the stupa. For sure, there’s a stupa somewhere on your right.
So when you’re driving or walking, there’s always a stupa somewhere on your right, so you’re circumambulating. So you you can think like this about every activity. So I think it’s great. Jude. Right.
It depends how you’re asking, is it alright? You know? If you want to do your absolute best for somebody who’s sick or dying or dead, the absolute best is the seven Medicine Buddhas, but you visualize the seven Medicine Buddhas above their head, not above your head. So if you’re doing the practice for somebody else, a dog, a cat, a person, visualize the seven Medicine Buddhas above them and then the nectar and the light coming down into them specifically. If you want to bless, liquid, you know, like a bottle of water, you can visualize the Medicine Buddha or Buddhas above, and then the nectar and the blessings coming into the water.
You can do the same with medicine, that you have the bowl of medicine, and then visualize, all the blessings coming into the medicine. So you can use the Medicine Buddha that way or traditionally above your own head and then the blessings coming into you and then flowing out to other sentient beings. But more powerful for somebody who needs it is to do it above their head and visualizing the blessings and the purification for them. That’s the best. Then second best is to do the single Medicine Buddha.
Right? So the best is the seven. The the second best would be the single Medicine Buddha. The third best would be to recite the mantra and and offer the mantra. And, you know, I know we’re all very busy, and so we need this ability to say, well, today, I’ve only got twenty minutes because I gotta be there, do this, this, this.
What can I do? And so you have to choose what you can do in the time that you’ve got, isn’t it? And not be guilty that you’re not doing enough. You know? Right.
You can’t because you gotta be in there. Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, it definitely helps you.
So it definitely helps you. And the nicer your mind is, the more you want to benefit others. Then you become a Bodhisattva, then you can help even more, then you become a Buddha, you can help even more. So even if it doesn’t help them at all, definitely it helps you. Your mental, your spiritual capacity, mental, spiritual, emotional capacity is developing.
But on top of that, sometimes it does benefit them. They have to have the karma to be benefited. You can’t control that. You’re a condition for them to be helped. If they can’t accept that help, that’s not your responsibility.
You tried, but they couldn’t take it. So from your side, you just keep giving, not expecting them to receive, not expecting them to take, but you just give. That’s what you do. And you do it because that’s who you are. You know?
Not based on what they take from it, based on what you want to do. This is important to know, isn’t it? You know? That you say, oh, I’m really thirsty. And I say, well, here.
Have this water. And you you say, oh, okay. But you never drink it. And I say, water? You don’t drink it.
I say, you sure you don’t want water? He said, I’m so thirsty. Water? That person wants Coca Cola. They don’t want to drink water.
They don’t like water. So you can offer water. What did we used to say? You can take the take the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Isn’t it?
So karmically, we’re a condition for healing, but we’re not healing. We’re just offering a positive energy towards them, and the Medicine Buddha works on the karma and the spirits to remove the harm. So for sure, it’s going to work on the spirit harm. With cancer, particularly, there’s always spirits around. So that will help to remove the spirits.
And Geshe Lama Konchog used to say, you should try and put a Medicine Buddha picture behind the head of the person. Even if they’re in a coma, often they’ll come out of the coma really quickly when you put Medicine Buddha there because it helps to remove the spirits in the area. So that will help. But in many cases, you can’t because it’s an ordinary hospital and, you know, it’s not a Buddhist hospital hospital. And so it’s got to be appropriate to the person who’s in the bed.
So the most appropriate is what you’re doing. You’re offering the positive energy, and then they can accept it or not. But you should definitely do it because it changes you. That’s what I said. We keep making these karmic connections so that when we become a Bodhisattva, if we have a million karmic connections, we can benefit a million.
If we didn’t make those prayers and do those visualizations, we might have ten karmic connections. And so you’re trying and trying to help others, but nobody takes your help. You say, water? Yes. No.
Thank you. Not from you. Flowers? No. Thank you.
Not from you. Because no connection. So these visualizations and these prayers and these motivations are to open up the connections so that when you become Bodhisattva, you are able to help. Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa made the same prayers in their last life before before, Lama Osel was Lama Osel. When he was Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa, they made the same prayers separately.
May we bring Dharma to all those who don’t have Dharma. And Lama Zopa says the reason why they were so successful being able to open monasteries, publishing, hospices, hundred and seventy centers around the world as refugees with no money, nothing. How they were so successful is because they prayed. They both had the same prayer. So it was just from the power of prayer.
You know? So they said, may we be able to give Dharma to those who don’t have Dharma. Who’s that? Westerners. So that’s how they were so successful teaching Westerners and not so much Tibetans.
So don’t, devalue the power of prayer. It gives you the karmic connections with all sentient beings. Okay? K.