The Blue Ray
I first learned about the Medicine Buddha when a Buddhist friend from California did a prayer meditation for my mother who was very ill. She said the Medicine Buddha is an enlightened
being known as the healer of physical and mental illness. He is depicted seated, wearing the three robes of a Buddhist monk, holding a blue-colored jar of medicine nectar in his left hand with the right hand resting on his right knee. He holds the stem of the Myrobalan plant which is considered an exceptional universal healing plant. A lapis lazuli blue aura surrounds him.
In the years that followed, my knowledge of the Medicine Buddha remained subtle and uninformed. But apparently that prayer she invoked for my mother was destined to sow seeds that would begin to emerge a few years later when my brother-in-law went to Nepal and brought me a beautiful Life of Buddha Thangka. It had all the aspects of Buddha, including the Medicine Buddha, painted on it. Soon after the painting was hung over our altar the Medicine Buddha began to make its presence known.
One morning in meditation two figures appeared on either side of the Medicine Buddha. The one on the left identified herself as the Bodhisattva Chandra, Goddess of the Moon. The one on the right identified herself as the Bodhisattva Surya, Goddess of the Sun. Both of them appeared in a sea of blue color. In the scene were shades of the most extraordinary clear blues with streams and pure rays of blue everywhere. I wrote down the meditation with plans to share it with our local women's circle, which I did in 2014.
Fast forward two years later. The local Buddhist Center invited the community to a Medicine Buddha Empowerment. An empowerment is like an initiation. It's a ceremonial ritual handed down in an unbroken lineage for thousands of years. It consists of prayers, blessings, a guided meditation, and an initiation into practices associated with a specific aspect of the Buddha.
Walking into the center my eyes fixed on a poster of the Medicine Buddha. Normally the Medicine Buddha, portrayed in blue, sits serenely alone. But this one was different. What caught my attention were the two deities on either side of the Buddha - the Goddess of the Moon and the Goddess of the Sun. I recalled the meditation from several years earlier as the bell rang for the ceremony.
An empowerment is a very singular and purposeful experience. No two are alike. After a series of teachings and chants the meditation guiding the empowerment began. In the stillness, the visuals that were called in took over my being. I became immersed inside a Blue Ray of light. Blue filled every cell in my body. I had no consciousness of anything but The Blue Ray. I felt blue, saw blue, and experienced blue. There was a notable collapsing of the physical entity into this absorption by The Blue Ray. It was like experiencing blocks slowly falling away until nothing but a Blue Ray remained. In that state, I was submerged into a vast healing space that was timelessly held by the being known as the Medicine Buddha. I had become the Blue Ray.
Since the empowerment the effects of the Blue Ray continue. When needed for healing, it's
summoned as though it never left. A cold, accompanied by 2 weeks of coughing, caused the muscles around my ribs to become painfully inflamed so I decided to visit my local physician. On a scale of 1-10, the pain was a 10. Before going to the doctor I summoned the Medicine Buddha in meditation. An hour after meditation I went to the doctor. When asked the level of pain, I said a 6. The doctor prescribed muscle relaxants and an anti-inflammatory medication. By the time I got home the pain was a 2. I filled NO prescriptions. Over the course of 6 hours, a severe pain in the ribs that had been with me for two weeks, disappeared completely in the Blue Ray of healing.
Lama Tashi Namgyal said, "If one meditates on the Medicine Buddha, one will eventually attain enlightenment, but in the meantime one will experience an increase in healing powers both for oneself and others and a decrease in physical and mental illness and suffering." That is the force of the Medicine Buddha and the power of The Blue Ray!
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In the years that followed, my knowledge of the Medicine Buddha remained subtle and uninformed. But apparently that prayer she invoked for my mother was destined to sow seeds that would begin to emerge a few years later when my brother-in-law went to Nepal and brought me a beautiful Life of Buddha Thangka. It had all the aspects of Buddha, including the Medicine Buddha, painted on it. Soon after the painting was hung over our altar the Medicine Buddha began to make its presence known.
One morning in meditation two figures appeared on either side of the Medicine Buddha. The one on the left identified herself as the Bodhisattva Chandra, Goddess of the Moon. The one on the right identified herself as the Bodhisattva Surya, Goddess of the Sun. Both of them appeared in a sea of blue color. In the scene were shades of the most extraordinary clear blues with streams and pure rays of blue everywhere. I wrote down the meditation with plans to share it with our local women's circle, which I did in 2014.
|  |
Fast forward two years later. The local Buddhist Center invited the community to a Medicine Buddha Empowerment. An empowerment is like an initiation. It's a ceremonial ritual handed down in an unbroken lineage for thousands of years. It consists of prayers, blessings, a guided meditation, and an initiation into practices associated with a specific aspect of the Buddha.
Walking into the center my eyes fixed on a poster of the Medicine Buddha. Normally the Medicine Buddha, portrayed in blue, sits serenely alone. But this one was different. What caught my attention were the two deities on either side of the Buddha - the Goddess of the Moon and the Goddess of the Sun. I recalled the meditation from several years earlier as the bell rang for the ceremony.
An empowerment is a very singular and purposeful experience. No two are alike. After a series of teachings and chants the meditation guiding the empowerment began. In the stillness, the visuals that were called in took over my being. I became immersed inside a Blue Ray of light. Blue filled every cell in my body. I had no consciousness of anything but The Blue Ray. I felt blue, saw blue, and experienced blue. There was a notable collapsing of the physical entity into this absorption by The Blue Ray. It was like experiencing blocks slowly falling away until nothing but a Blue Ray remained. In that state, I was submerged into a vast healing space that was timelessly held by the being known as the Medicine Buddha. I had become the Blue Ray.
Since the empowerment the effects of the Blue Ray continue. When needed for healing, it's
|  |
Lama Tashi Namgyal said, "If one meditates on the Medicine Buddha, one will eventually attain enlightenment, but in the meantime one will experience an increase in healing powers both for oneself and others and a decrease in physical and mental illness and suffering." That is the force of the Medicine Buddha and the power of The Blue Ray!
Jo Mooy - June 2016
