This article comes at a good time for me. My tailbone has been bothering me for several months and now it is starting to affect my legs.
My spiritual practice as taught to me by Alcoholics Anonymous has proven to me that I must let go of my self-centered, self-pitying thinking, and turn my thoughts to others who are in greater need of help. This gets me out of myself, and when I do, I actually feel much less physical pain.
The Medicine Buddha has been my friend since I first picked up a poster of him in a Buddhist bookstore up in Berkeley. For the past 12 years, this framed poster of the Medicine Buddha has been shining like the sun into my residences and into my consciousness. It is said that just by contemplating the image of the Medicine Buddha that one begins to heal. I think it's true. Just look at his image and see how totally generous and compassionate he is. By the sheer force of the compassion that radiates through him, we get a glimpse of forgiveness. At that same moment, though we may not be conscious of it. we become able to forgive (and be forgiven of) many of the stupid things that account for the stupid karmic messes we find ourselves in.
2 comments:
I like your post on the Medicine Buddha! I never realized pictures of Buddha have different meanings and serve different purposes. The karma of healing...wow thats heavy stuff. Yet very uplifting and enlightening!!!
M
:-)
I'm glad that you liked it! He, the Medicine Buddha, is so powerful a spiritual presence. The thing that I like about the Buddhas is that they help to anchor aspects of God consciousness that we otherwise might not ever be able to imagine. Every detail of a painting or drawing of a Buddha is meant to concretely signify something (like strength, or compassion, or generosity, or spiritual power) that Buddhists use to help understand qualities of God consciousness. It's
like art history.
I also like the fact that the Medicine Buddha is one of eight Medicine
Buddhas, each who are different and go about healing and doctoring in
different ways. It's kind of like medical specialists, like neurologists, pediatricians, urologists, psychiatrists,
gastroenterologists, dentists, addictionists, and of course primary
care physicians. You can see any of these guys! All it takes is some prayer and meditation.
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