The Lotus Still Blooms (17 page)

So it was that the wheel of the dharma turned with the Buddha’s awakening. The wheel of the dharma turned with Jesus Christ’s resurrection. With these two acts of awakening and enlightenment came greater opportunity for us all. We must engage these Three Jewels and embrace the opportunities that have been given us.

Here is a spiritual practice that we can engage in daily while holding and counting mala beads or counting with your fingers (much more tedious). Chant at each count, “I seek refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.” A Christian version would be, “I seek refuge in the Christ, the teaching and my spiritual community.” Take a deep, easy breath after each conscious repetition, and after a few dozen you will feel yourself calming down and centering. Do this on each of the 108 beads daily, and in time you will experience an increasingly permanent calming and relaxing of your mind.

I had a personal opportunity to directly apply this technique and exercise when I was leaving a Sogyal Rinpoche retreat in Northern California. The area was totally unknown to me as I drove my rental car on the switchback roads alone. I was practicing breathing and remained centered, even in the frightening driving conditions. It occurred to me to call my mother to check on her and to share some of my experiences of the extended retreat.

An unfamiliar male voice answered my call. It was a little disconcerting, until I realized it was a male relative who would seldom visit. It was also unsettling because he was always highly critical of my spiritual study and interest in Buddhism. And here we were, on the telephone with each other just after I had left a Buddhist retreat! My relative’s sardonic attitude had not changed but, thank God and the Buddha, my response had. I remained centered and calm, not responding to any of the worn-out jabs pointed in my direction.

Shortly after ending the conversation I came upon a scenic overlook. I pulled off and drank in the beautiful vista. Then I began to pray on each of the 108 beads of my mala bracelet: “I seek refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.” I did four complete sets, which took about twenty minutes, and I subsequently felt totally at peace. Applying the refuge exercise immediately proved to be most beneficial, resulting in warm feelings for my relative instead of hurt, fearful ones.

With a clearing of the mind comes peace and seeking refuge where it truly can be found.

—HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA

SPIRITUAL MEDICINE

A TEACHING BY His Holiness the Dalai Lama was sponsored by “The Land of the Medicine Buddha,” a sangha in California located on eighty-five acres of magical, tranquil land adjacent to ten thousand acres of federal land. At the closing ceremonies for this beautiful teaching, a chorus of children of the sangha sang in precious, clear, little voices to the Dalai Lama:

How great it would be when all beings were happy living without pain for all time to come
.

The Dalai Lama leaned forward with his hand on his chin and cracked up! They were so cute, so adorable. The children continued to sing, and their chorus was:

The Dalai Lama started to chant the chorus along with the children, then the monks joined in, then the sixteen thousand in attendance joined in in a holy instant during which all sang:

Then the children continued:
I will help them to find this happiness.

Then all:
Om, Madna, Padna, Hum.

The children:
How great it will be if all beings were free, if we all loved everyone equally.

All:
Om, Madna, Padna, Hum.

I was moved, deeply moved, and my heart was filled. What the “Medicine Buddha” sangha is about is healing. And healing certainly was occurring in that space. Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who sponsored the Dalai Lama’s visit, is a delightful presence and a radiant light from Santa Cruz. He said, “The Medicine Buddha is the manifestation of the healing energy of all enlightened beings. Symbolically coming together here in this one presence in our own lives, we can become one of the healed, enlightened beings.”

One way to cure disease is through one’s own mind, with meditation. Not only is this an effective method, but there are also no negative side effects. As well as healing, meditation promotes peace, calm and tranquillity in your heart. And the happiness you experience is transmitted to others, and thus you benefit them, as well.

This is the energy of the Medicine Buddha. It opens our minds and softens our hearts. We can think of it as “spiritual medicine” with no side effects. What a fabulous concept that we can all use: medicine for our souls.

Said the Dalai Lama, “Just as particular medication is not suitable for all people with a particular illness or ailment, one type of spiritual medication cannot be applied to every single person with an illness of the soul.” An intense course of meditation would work for one, retreats for another, deep forgiveness for another. What is right and helpful for one may not be what is right for another because of the fact that our woundings are different and our needs for healing vary from person to person. We must find what spiritual medicine works for us.

There are many spiritual medications we can take, and they never have ill side effects. They all have positive side effects. For example:

If one had tremendous judgment and animosity toward another person’s organizations or certain groups of people, the “medicine” would be forgiveness, love and compassion. These medicines, when practiced well, will help the individual achieve freedom from the suffering that such states of mind bring. Also, he can gain insight into his own nature and see how he is like that which he holds such a grievance against. When he discovers he has the same hopes and fears and dreams as the person or groups he judges, he can develop compassion rather than hatred for them. This is the kind of result that comes from consistent, faithful use of spiritual medicine.

Then, as the hatred, judgments and animosity begin to leave us and dissolve from our minds, they are replaced with understanding, thoughts of loving kindness, and compassion. We begin to see that individual as a spiritual sister, someone just like me. This assists us in our own healing and empowers us in healing others in need.

How does this precious teaching fit us today in our society and culture? How can I remember to use the spiritual medicines that are right for me? You will know by the results, or as Jesus said, “by the fruits.” You will know they are right when your suffering is declining and your well-being is increasing. It is having a positive effect so that you begin to live up to your potential and begin to be a noble one. You are liberating your own soul.

Very often the Dalai Lama is intently attended to by an absolutely luminous being. And there he was at the Medicine Buddha teaching. This unassuming, humble monk has a translucent quality about him. He literally appears as if he is lit from within. He’s onto something powerful. I love to open my heart and simply watch him as his glowing presence tenderly attends to His Holiness. It is taught that luminosity is the hall-mark of an enlightened being.

As we work with spiritual medicine, it has to meet us where we are. Just remember that all spiritual medicines are not for all spiritual practitioners. This allows us to be more tolerant, more understanding of those in various religious traditions—those friends who think very differently than we do, those family members who think very differently than we do.

What they need for spiritual medicine is not the same as what you need for spiritual medicine.

Those of us who have left traditional religions often look back and realize that the spiritual medicine of those systems did not cure our ills for a very long time. We ask: Did my heart and soul begin to leave a long time ago? We decide: This isn’t for me anymore, even though at one time it was and may still be for friends and relatives.

We need to always be mindful of the fact that, just because of where we may be today, in our zealousness we may want to convince our friends to embrace our new way. Please remember that the concept of conversion is one that appeals only to the unenlightened mind. In other words, do not attempt to convert your friends or relatives to your way of thinking and believing. I look at missionaries attempting to convert native peoples to their foreign religion, and I am deeply puzzled by this concept. What is the point? Is it beneficial?

My husband and I spend as much time as we can on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, the only island not invaded (for invasion it was) by missionaries. The damage that was done and the deep-seeded sorrow over loss of culture, language and religion is still palatable with the Hawaiian people today. This is all because Western missionaries believed it was their mission to bring Christianity to peoples that already were living for an aeon with deep spiritual practices on every level of their existence. The drive to covert propels some well-intended but misguided souls to this day, thinking their medicine is the Divine remedy for everyone who doesn’t believe as they do, particularly native peoples.

YEARS AGO there was a very troubled young woman in my congregation who wrestled daily with deep feelings of rejection and abandonment that stemmed from her early childhood. Mary Sue was only six when her family moved from the United States to Japan, where her parents were about to begin a six-year stint as Protestant missionaries.

Her older siblings, who all moved to Japan, were immediately placed in a special English-speaking school for the children of missionaries. Mary Sue, being so much younger than her brothers and sisters, was sent off to another school for very young children to be boarded and “educated.” Most of her education was in abandonment. Some years she was visited only twice by her mother and not at all by her father. The experience devastated her soul and self-esteem. For many years she has worked at filling the holes in her psyche. To this day her pain is still very real, as is her confusion and resentment.

This child lived in a foreign environment as a virtual orphan, and I dare say her misguided parents were busy trying to convert Japanese Zen Buddhists into Lutherans. It is simply staggering what some people consider valuable at the cost of losing their own children and family. As an adult, Mary Sue sought many forms of spiritual medicine, for she was wise enough to realize just how wounded she was.

After several years of therapy and after she was an adult, she attempted to speak to her parents about the devastating impact those six years in Japan had on her. Her parents simply did not want to hear it and would not listen. As Jesus said, they simply did not have the ears to hear.

After that, her spiritual medicine turned to engaging many forgiveness practices. It took many more years, but now she is much healed. She has lost a hundred pounds of “protective” weight, is working at what she loves, is acknowledged, appreciated and feeling good about herself. She learned how to heal her past and love herself.

In my opinion the entire notion of conversion comes from the missionaries’ own self-doubt and questioning that has never been addressed. All their religious practices are projected outside the individual. While engaged in the acts of conversion, this doubt will never be addressed.

Spiritual medicine changes as we travel on our journey toward enlightenment. Many holy teachers remind us that a common factor in all great spiritual teachers is that they have endured great periods of hardship.We metaphysical types do not like to acknowledge the hardships of life. Don’t we just wish this wasn’t so? It’s hard to perceive accurately through rose-colored glasses. If everything isn’t fabulous, the sleeping metaphysician thinks, then you’d better not speak of it because what we focus on expands. What also expands, I believe, is our avoidance of some of the harsher experiences in life.

We need to accept and not be fearful of the fact that there are and will be times in life that are really tough. There are difficult times when we will be sick, when we or a loved one will suffer greatly, when someone we love will die, when we will be at the top of our game and then tumble. There are times when our world will be thrown into utter chaos. That happens. It is part of the journey. Life is impermanent.

When I heard the Dalai Lama say this, I pondered how true this had been in his life. As a young leader of his people at age twenty-one, he had to flee Tibet under cover. More than a million Tibetans have since been murdered by the Chinese communists. Thousands of Buddhist monasteries have been destroyed. He has personally known suffering deeply. The Dalai Lama has compassion for the perpetrators, but do not for a moment think he lives in a realm above it all. It has been most difficult for him. I have witnessed this precious man weep over the tragedies that have occurred, the sufferings he has endured and the ongoing sufferings of his people. But the tragedies do not define him. They have not, cannot, erode his true essence.