Medicine Buddha Mantra

 

TAYATA / OM BEKANDZE BEKANDZE / MAHA BEKANDZE RADZA / SAMUDGATE SOHA

 

Bekandze means eliminating pain, maha bekandze means great eliminating of pain.

The first bekandze eliminates all the problems of body and mind, including old age and sickness.

 

The second bekandze eliminates all the true cause of suffering, which is not external but within the mind .This refers to karma and disturbing thoughts. It is the inner cause that enables external factors such as food and exposure to sunlight to become conditions for disease.

 

Scientists claim that intense exposure to the sun causes skin cancer. However, without the cause in the mind, there is nothing to make external factors become conditions for disease.

 

For example, not everyone who sunbathes on the beach gets skin cancer. The important question is: Why doesn’t everyone who is exposed to the sun get skin cancer?

 

If someone has created the cause, as long as they do not do anything to purify it, the cause will definitely bring its own result; just as a seed that is planted will definitely result in a sprout as long as it is not eaten by birds, and so forth. Once there is a cause, as long as there is no obstacle to the cause, it is natural to experience its result.

 

So, the second bekandze refers to eliminating the cause of problems, karma motivated by disturbing thoughts.

 

The third phrase, maha bekandze, or “great eliminating,” refers to eliminating even the subtle imprints left on the consciousness by disturbing thoughts.

 

Reciting the mantra leaves imprints on our mind, so that we are also able to actualize the path contained in the mantra. It establishes the blessing of the whole path within our heart; we can then generate the whole graduated path to enlightenment, which is signified by bekandze bekandze maha bekandze.

 

 Actualizing the whole path to enlightenment purifies our impure body, speech, and mind and transforms them into the Medicine Buddha’s pure holy body, holy speech, and holy mind. We then become a perfect guide for living beings.

   
We are able to effortlessly see, without mistake, the level of mind of every living being and all the methods that fit them in order to bring them from happiness to happiness, to the peerless happiness of full enlightenment.