Living Prayer
Prayer is deep, intimate communion with one’s Self-nature… the One in all beings. It is a request (or offering, like gratitude) from the depths of one's heart to all that is. Ultimately, it is the Incomprehensible speaking to the Incomprehensible.
“A prayer flag never wears out. Even after the last thread rides on the wind, the prayer waves on and on, forever and ever. How deeply those prayer flags touch us when we see them flying freely in the wind, way on high. Colourful banners of blessings, aging and ragged, keeping vigil in spiritual enthusiasm for all.”
As ShantiMayi said:
“It seems the secret of the prayer and the answer to the prayer lies in this wisdom: You always get what you need, not necessarily what you want. That is of course the greatest fortune.”
Where the Heart Turns
ShantiMayi turned our focus to prayer in many ways.
We offer prayer wherever the heart feels most moved:
For family — to soften the heart, to invite patience, compassion, repair, and nurture love.
For the sick, the dying, and the grieving — to offer steadiness, presence, and courage.
For the Earth — to tend, to heal, and to remember our belonging.
For awakening — a quiet dedication that each being may realize its own true nature.
Even a small act of attention or intention can offer steadiness and care.
Sometimes the prayer asks for change.
Sometimes it asks only for the strength to bear what is.
Often, the answer arrives in a shape we did not expect — a shift in circumstance, or the widening of our capacity to be present.
“Everything is listening, everything. It starts in your heart and from there the rhythm of life itself hears itself. The trees listen, the breeze listens, not with ears but in resonance. The intonation of that intimate moment, speaking from the depths of your being to all that can possibly be, resounds throughout the whole of existence in an extraordinary way. And that prayer is answered like an echo calling back to the center; and from there, an answer returns from its source. Yes indeed, the one who speaks, is the one who hears.”
— ShantiMayi
Ways to Pray
ShantiMayi showed us that prayer can take many forms. Follow your heart, not technique.
Sit in stillness and let your prayer rise from and rest in the silence.
Speak aloud, or whisper inwardly.
Chant sacred mantras — Gayatri, Guru, Medicine Buddha, Om Purnamidah, or others.
Light a candle, offer a Havan, or create a despacho.
Offer touch, breath, song, laying-on-of-hands, or any practice including Li Qi and other healing modalities that flow from your heart.
Join a circle of voices or hold a private intention at home.
Even a pause, fully held, is a prayer.
“Perhaps the prayer takes the shape of a request that you will realize God in everything. The result of prayer brings forth a peaceful meditative atmosphere. The more our prayer is for the awakening of all, the greater our world is.”
— ShantiMayi
Joining Together — Wherever You Are
We gather across distance in shared attention and stillness.
Collective Presence — Every 2nd Monday, alternating 6 PM CET and 3 AM CET
A simple field of presence. Join wherever you are and participate in any manner that you wish to offer prayer.
We encourage Sangha to find a time for private prayer and reflection every Monday at whatever time is best.
(This is in addition to any other days you may also wish to offer prayer.)
In this way we begin each week with prayer cascading across the world within our different time zones.
To sign up to receive the Zoom link and list of Prayer Requests:
Email: council@ganeshfoundation.org
Weekly Chant for Families — Fridays, 6:00 PM CET
We chant the Medicine Buddha Mantra for families. To join, contact Chundra and Amrita directly at chundra@mantrasite.nl.
For wider participation in healing, the World Wide Healing Circle gathers practitioners who chant the Medicine Buddha for healing for all who request support on this site.
For wider participation in offering prayers for the awakening of all and chanting the Gayatri Mantra together, visit:
http://www.worldwidelightcircle.net
“If we understand the power of prayer, we would be praying every minute.”
— ShantiMayi
Receiving Prayer
If you wish the Sangha to hold a prayer for yourself or a loved one:
Write to the Council:
council@ganeshfoundation.orgInclude the name, the nature of the request, and whether you consent to wide sharing.
Mark “Private” if you wish it held only within the Council.
Monthly holding: General requests are included in a monthly list of prayer requests circulated amongst the Sangha.
Time-sensitive matters: For urgent needs — serious illness, passing, or immediate crises — the Council issues alerts so prayers can gather swiftly.
If you may not be able to contact the Council yourself in times of emergency, consider alerting a loved one to contact us.
Prayer opens the heart.
In that opening, the world reveals itself as divine (indivisible). Healing flows, support arises, and the One prays through us.
“How humble it is to tell a sacred secret to the wind, the rain, the plants and the stars and even to a fleeting moment. In that opening, the world reveals itself as divine (indivisible). Healing flows, support arises, and the One prays through us.”
— ShantiMayi
MEDICINE BUDDHA MANTRA
LONG VERSION
Om Namo Bhagawate Bhaishjaya Guru
Vaidurya Prabha Rajaya Tathagataya
Arhate Samyaksam Buddhaya
Teyatha
Om Bekhajye Bekhajye Maha Bekhajye
Bekhajye Rajaya Samudgate Svaha
The Mantra means:
Gloriously and Respectfully we request from you
Medicine Buddha Guru,
One of lapis lazuli light, King that has once come
Fully enlightened one who is beyond this
dual-natured world
It is done like this...(we ask like this)
Do away with illness. Do away with illness.
Do away with the great illness of
the ignorance of our True Nature.
King Medicine Buddha
This prayer is relinquished unto you.
An Ode to
Medicine Buddha
He is a blue-hued Buddha, one of empowerment, embracing aspects of Buddha’s grace in the shape of dynamic healing energies and blessings.
His deep lapis blue hues and rays shine onto and into the physical, psychological and emotional bodies for good health and wellbeing. Good health and wellbeing are the very foundation for spiritual excellence. Medicine Buddha is invoked to merge into our being as a balancing force to heal ourselves as well as others.
He is the Bodhisattva Physician of well-being and vitality. Let us celebrate his skill in healing. Let us offer to him our joy that is aroused by his presence in our life.
We have had such wonderful results from the Medicine Buddha’s healing blue-light-frequency, his mantra and presence in our lives.
You too can certainly have an intimate respectful relationship with the Great Menla (one of Medicine Buddha’s many names) regardless of your pathway or better yet, as an enhancement to your pathway. Medicine Buddha Mantra is a wonderful practice for all.
Healers can truly exalt their work through Medicine Buddha’s grace. In addition to the introduction below that speaks of how Medicine Buddha came to us (ShantiMayi and her students, we…who are not Buddhists) I also want to mention that there is a wonderful Medicine Buddha healing website, and a place for names that you may want to submit to for healing. There are many people dedicated to chanting the mantra for those names that are added to the website. You can also sign up to chant for those names that are submitted to the site for healing.
Get acquainted at: www.worldwidehealingcircle.net
Take a look and join in. People have had very good healing results (it has often been reported to us) from participating in this website’s prayers.
How we got involved with
Medicine Buddha Practice
A little history of the Venerable Menla’s arrival into our Sacred Circle. What great fortune it was to have Medicine Buddha literally knock on our door and pour his grace and medicine onto and into us.
In Terre de Sacha in the summer of 2000, while I was giving an intensive, these words flowed out of my lips, “What is in the Medicine Buddha’s bowl?” I had not thought of the Medicine Buddha at all before that moment. I could not trace the origin of that question but it was hauntingly there. It was there and familiar, but until that moment, I hardly knew anything about the Medicine Buddha.
A few years earlier I had purchased a picture of the Medicine Buddha while in Australia for a disciple there. But Medicine Buddha was his interest and not mine.
However, when I looked within my heart, I saw inside Menla’s bowl and discovered countless great medicines, the true remedies for illnesses of every kind. In his bowl there is compassion, understanding, patience, insight, mindfulness, care, wisdom and there are many other elixirs as well: herbs, frequencies, colors, blue lights and of course wisdom. The next day a beautiful large photo of Medicine Buddha arrived at my door. A student that knew nothing of the intensive the day before and had not even been present in Terre de Sacha on that day delivered the beautiful image. He just arrived with this wonderful large photo. He too knew nothing about the Medicine Buddha.
After the initial question about what is in the Medicine King’s bowl in Terre de Sacha that summer of 1998, the Medicine Buddha made many unexpected visits and his healing grace became a central theme in many conversations about the healing arts. As he continued to make his way into our hearts more and more every day, I inwardly understood that he would pursue me so that I would introduce his blue lapis lazuli rays into the awareness of people everywhere. And, that is exactly what happened and continues to happen. That was my understanding and my gift from Medicine Buddha.
One morning in India, during the 5:00 AM silent meditation, I was having a particularly difficult time focusing into the silence. It is usually quite easy to get a very deep meditation early in the morning. But this morning, I was constantly disturbed and so I listened into the disturbance. I heard the Medicine Buddha say, “You must give a three part empowerment and mandala meditation Sunday.”
I was unsure about doing this as I had not done it before. I feel it is very important to do ceremony with great respect and to know what you are doing.
So I listened and took the message that was given and felt I would follow through only if I felt confident enough to complete the ceremony. And ‘that’ was yet to be proven. I had not told anyone about the message because I always leave the hall at the end of the early meditation without a word.
At about 10:00 a.m. that same morning, a disciple came to my door with a horoscope for the time, which is the exact time I would also give the empowerment that I was told to give. The horoscope was a perfect harmony for the Menla empowerment. Things were adding up already. The disciple had no idea that the horoscope was a confirmation of the request I had heard that morning in meditation.
As the day continued on, as I was looking for ‘the way’ in which this would be done well, items just began appearing seemingly out of nowhere…that were necessary to have for the ceremony. For example, a student arrived from Australia with a gift of three beautiful silver bowls that had the eight auspicious signs of the Buddha around the rim.
I began to gain a humble confidence in my ability to perform the ceremony and I announced that the Medicine Buddha empowerment would be scheduled for the next Sunday.
I felt that it was very auspicious to offer the Blue Buddha’s trail of blessings in Sacha Dham Ashram in India on the banks of the Sacred Ganges. Everyone who participated in the three-day empowerment and visualizations directly felt the Medicine Buddha’s grace, presence and healing power.
Many spoke about their direct experience with the Blue Buddha and the immediate results. Medicine Buddha conducted the ceremony through me.
I am so grateful for this occurrence.
After about five years of Medicine Buddha practice, I was honored to be fully initiated into the Medicine Buddha Mantra during a half hour ceremony conducted by Dr. Yeshe Dhonden. He is a famous Tibetan Doctor. He was the Dalia Lama’s long-time physician. He also blessed our involvement with Medicine Buddha practice. GRACE is everywhere shinning as an emanating blue light.
Medicine Buddha has several names: Menla, Medicine King, King of Lapis Lazuli: Bhaishjaya Samudgate and Bhaishjaya Raja are twin Medicine Buddhas.
(There are more names as well.)
Excerpts from
The Medicine Buddha Sutra
Bodhisattva Manjushri once asked The Buddha:
“World Honored One! We wish that you would speak about Dharmas such as the Buddhas’ names, the vast vows they made in the past, and their supreme merit and virtue, so that those who hear it will be rid of their karmic hindrances. This request is also for the sake of bringing benefit and joy to all sentient beings who live in the Dharma-image age.”
The Buddha told Manjushri, “Passing from here to the east, beyond Buddha lands as numerous as the grains of sand along the Ganges Rivers, is a world called ‘Pure * Vaidurya.’ The Buddha there is named Medicine Master Vaidurya Light Tathagata, One Worthy of Offerings, Of Proper and Equal Enlightenment, Perfect in Clarity and Practice, Well Gone One, One Who Understands the World, Unsurpassed Lord, Taming and Regulating Hero, Teacher of Gods and People, Buddha, Bhagavan.
Manjushri, when that Buddha, World Honored One, Medicine Master Vaidurya Light Tathagata, was practicing the Bodhisattva way, he made twelve great vows that enable all living beings to obtain what they seek.
*Vaidurya means Lapis Lazuli
Below are but a few of the vows that he made.
Vows of the
Medicine Buddha
1. I vow that my body shall shine as beams of brilliant light on this infinite and boundless world, showering on all beings, ridding them of ignorance and worries with my teachings. May all beings be like me, with a perfect status and character, upright mind and soul, and finally attain enlightenment.
2. I vow that my body be like crystal, pure and flawless, radiating rays of splendid light to every corner, brightening up and enlightening all beings with wisdom. With the blessings of compassion, may all beings strengthen their spiritual power and physical energy, so that they could fulfill their dreams and move on with virtue.
3. I vow that I shall grant boundless wisdom to all beings and endow them with the things that they require. And I shall relieve them from every kind of pain and guilt resulting from materialistic desires. Although clothing, food, accommodation and transport are essentials, these must be utilized wisely. Ttaking what one needs and letting the remaining be generously shared with the community so that all may live harmoniously together.
After all the vows were made (these are but a few) Buddha again spoke. Buddha said to Manjushri, “Moreover, Manjushri, when Medicine Master Vaidurya Light Tathagata attained perfect enlightenment, by the power of his past vows, he contemplated all the sentient beings who were suffering from the many kinds of diseases, such as emaciation, paralysis, tuberculosis, biliousness, or fevers. Some were afflicted by voodoo or by poisonous spells. Some died naturally when young, while others experienced a violent death. At that time, wishing to put an end to all these various sicknesses and sufferings, and to supply whatever those beings sought after, the World Honored One entered a samadhi called “extinguishing the suffering and distress of all living beings.”
