Sangye Menla: My Patron Deity

I was surfing Tumblr for Sangye Menla and I came up with no results. I searched for “Medicine Buddha” and there were so many entries. A great deal of those entries were pictures, type or phonetic versions of his heart mantra. I am very familiar with his mantra.   I came across it six years ago at the beginning of my venture into Buddhism.  I had been doing some pathworking spiritually and had come across the Medicine Buddha and his heart mantra really spoke to me. Through him H.H. the 16^th Karmapa’s dream flag and into Kagyu Buddhism, but that’s another story.

 I read the phonetic spelling of his mantra and the cadence was just there. I can’t explain it but much later, after I felt very close to his mantra I found an audio version of it. I was afraid to listen to it, afraid I was wrong. I listened anyway, I wanted to do it properly and found that I was right. I was uplifted and felt even more connected to him and the mantra. My working with Sangye Menla was really just chanting and trying to understand his mantra. It was early in my pathworking and I was trying to fit it into a “new age” or “pagan” spiritual mindset. It wasn’t working and I was getting a bit frustrated. Buddhism, as a philosophy, can fit easily into any organized religion. It’s a mindset of giving and sacrifice. I was exploring this, but my mind was locked, limited and I didn’t really know that at the time. It’s only in retrospect that I can identify these moments.

Tayata
Om Bekandze Bekandze
Maha Bekandze
Radza Samudgate Soha

I put everything away and lived simply in this mantra. I have seen many translations of it but this is the one that found me and how I came to understand it.

Mantra Meaning:

Tayatha: It is like this (setting intention)

Om: The complete sound of the universe

Beckandze: Request for healing

Beckandze: Request for healing

Maha Beckandze: Request for great healing

Radza: I bow to the King of Lapis Lazuli, great healer

Samungate: lead me to enlightenment

Soha: so mote it be

It was the setting of intention that got me. What is my intention? At the time the tiniest of voices from the middle of my heart said it was selfish, that what I was really after was healing for myself. My health was bad and getting worse. I had an abscess in the root of my eye-tooth but when I went to have the tooth pulled it was gone. It settled in the sac around my heart and caused paricarditus. I was passing out and I was weak and even though I had grown up with illness and limitation this was rock bottom it seemed. I was praying for only myself. I realized this and I chose to listen to that little voice and expand my perspective so I could find my intent, my true intent. As I thought about myself and how sick I was I realized that I was where I was because I procrastinated out of fear. I realized that my mind was my limitation. I thought back to my experience of floating in nothingness and the intent of my life and understood. My mindset caused emotion which lead to physical action. Asking for physical healing wouldn’t help me. I was asking Buddha to heal me in a way which would lead me to more suffering and sickness. I understood.

So I focused on my intention and being as I chanted this mantra. I centered myself (OM) I asked for physical healing for everyone (beckandze) I asked for emotional healing for everyone (beckandze) I asked for healing of the mind for everyone, to break through that blockage (maha beckandze) I was humble before the Buddha, great healer (radza) I asked to be his disciple, to help with healing (Samungate) So let it be (So ha)

From that moment on when I chanted the Medicine Buddha mantra (or any other that I would learn) from the mindset of Universal good. I understood that without the negative circumstance of my health I wouldn’t have been motivated to look for better. I began to chant it with the intention of freeing every sentient being through that same mental shift.  Putting your intention out into the Universe through a higher power is seen as prayer no matter which religious context you put it in. I was praying to Sangye Menla and as I did so I left it in his hands. May they be healed. May they meet their challenge and find their way through. May they know peace that comes from within, from the source which cannot be taken by anyone, by any circumstance. So ha! I prayed and prayed, sometimes for an entire day I would set my intention to serve others. My path lead to Kagyu Buddhism and to studying under Lama Norlha Rinpoche in New York. That is also another story, but my working with the Medicine Buddha would continue. He would lead me to Chenrezig, the Buddha of compassion.  His mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum (pronounced by Tibetans as: Om Mani Peme Hung) would lead me to a complete centering.  He would lead me.

I still chant his mantra. I still pray for the great healing of the world. I pray that we all have our mental walls lifted to show us we had nothing to fear, we were all alike all along; we’re all connected. That always leads me back to Chenrezig and compassion. That was my lesson at this time. I don’t ask Sangye Menla to heal me, physically. I don’t ask for the instruments of my lessons to be lifted. I walk forward and meet my challenges with my arms open wide…. When I don’t have my head in my rear while learning those lessons that is.

Expand your mind. Or as I told my nephew; Pan your perspective back until it’s your choice then choose what you want. We are all responsible for ourselves, that means my physical impact on this world and people, the emotional state I allow myself to be consumed in for the atmosphere it creates, my mindset and intent for they shape my impact here by setting the context of my emotional states and through that my physical actions. And I keep coming back to this quote from the Buddha “The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings.” I understand this now, in my limited way, and I thank the Medicine Buddha for clearing the cobwebs from my mind and helping me to unfold it.

Namaste

Compassion & Community

They say when Buddha realized it was like 84,000 doors opening... I like to think that those doors are the various paths we all take to the same end and when you become you are at one with all paths, at one with your brothers and sisters. You can see the flow of karmic energy which pushed and shifted you also affecting your fellow human beings. I believe this is why the practice of compassion is so important. Unless you can swing the same result by sitting beneath the Bodhi tree and completely rearranging your mental state, we all must consciously practice compassion.

We start out pure and innocent, from one point of view. We have innate perfection always no matter our state from another point of view. I can see where they’re both coming from, I believe. It’s “original sin” from one place and the effects of samsara from another. I can see how they’re both correct, I believe. All religious paths are teaching the same basic thing. You can see the truth hidden in the dogma. Each of us has the responsibility of holding our souls to truth. It’s all too easy to “follow” a church and give away your free thought. Free thought and questions aren’t generally looked favorably upon within religious organizations. Free thought threatens the control.

Right now, free thought and difference of opinion are met with outright violence from our country. Sure, you can say it’s “them” but that is just disassociating yourself with your fellow man. Nope! The way forward is together, it’s with our arms around the shoulders of our brothers and sisters and working for the good of all.  It seems a hundred years ago our country took a perspective of “restriction” as the road to civilization. I disagree with that precept. We cannot have our laws, our government, our very lives set to restrict. That is a “punish the good with the bad because we “have” to” approach. All that has done is made those good people who are screwed by the rules cease to follow the rules. I doubt the number of criminals corrected through this type of government can even be 1/100^th of those who now disregard the rules and take care of only themselves. Don’t agree? Go out into any town and drive around for a couple hours. Count the number of people who follow a four way stop correctly and not just “I was here second, I GO second”.  Drive on the highway and see how you’re treated. Remember to leave your own personality at home so you can stay objective.

We go from one isolation booth to another throughout our day. When was the last time you heard a siren before you saw the vehicle? We isolated ourselves from the road and, unwittingly, each other. The same is true with the way we work. Do you remember when having more than one job over two years would get you declined for a job? Do you remember when you knew the names and numbers of every man on the team? Before free agency? Do you remember when teachers taught instead of worked to not get fired? Do you remember when you felt good about your government? For me, it’s been a while and I want that feeling back.

I feel we’ve focused on the individual as a solution to the problem of the 50’s oppression and close minded attitude. Where a man was a man a woman was in the kitchen. It was wrong, but we didn’t address the reason, we sought to restrict. We restricted speech and brought about political correctness. All that did was cause the sexist, racist, bigoted attitudes to be hidden. We didn’t go to the root of the problem and address it. For each evolution of society a new mode of restriction was born. Einstein said that doing the same action repeatedly and expecting different results is insanity and I believe we’re all insane. We haven’t figured it out? The problem isn’t “them” it never was, it was “us” all along.

There is no one simple solution. There isn’t anything one person can do to change it for everyone. The solution lies within the hearts of every living being. We have to be the change before we can expect to see the change. We have to do what is right just because it’s right. Not because God is watching, not because we will get thrown in jail, not for any other reason other than the joy in my heart demands it.  If you could manage to strip all your paper-doll personae, from the moment you realized you were separate until this moment, perhaps you could see that joy in your heart. You shared willingly, you gave without thought of return, and there was no ownership and no religion. You didn’t have any shields then to protect your psyche against the repercussions of your own bad behavior. There were no justifications. If you were bad, you knew it and your friends let you know.

We all long for simpler times and leave it at that. We’ve given up and only those ruthless among us, those willing to hold out longer, have come to power. They don’t have our best interests at heart because that was not what drove them to excel. We have no one to blame for our mess, we are to blame. We let other people doing bad things change our ethics to where we just had to be a notch above them in order to feel superior. It’s all a lie and we know. We knew it then too, we chose the lazy.

It’s time, isn’t it? Haven’t we all had enough? All I want is to love and be treated fairly and I believe that is really what we all want. When our motivation is greed, and it certainly is in the world today, we have to take from another to have it for ourselves. This is wrong. We know it; otherwise we wouldn’t be driven by fear of losing what we have.  I’m tired of living in fear. I’m tired of seeing the faces of my brothers and sisters as they have to go against their nature to follow the “rules” when we know it’s wrong. Such as when we deny medical help, social help and so on. We shouldn’t be choosing money over truth and humanity. When we sacrifice our fellow man for our own gain we know it is possible for someone to do the same to us; enter fear and we are driven by it ever more.

We have to do what is right just because it’s right. We have to put the work in to see the benefits. We’ve grown into an instant-gratification society and it’s just wrong. When you work for something you appreciate it more; that is a truism. So why aren’t we moving forward that way? Why aren’t we putting the work in? We may say “we are, we go to church” but are you holding yourself responsible for the total effects of your life? Or are you putting the responsibility squarely on the church? It’s easy to use it as a shield and only you can know if your every effort is coming from your most sincere heart. Do you go to church for salvation or to lend your positive presence to the congregation? If it’s the first all you are is a taker and then when to you give back?

Pay it forward by being a good person, treat everyone fairly, practice compassion, patience, understanding, tolerance, and so on. When we live those ideals they become … we’ve been living the ideals of greed and possession and it has become & we’re all suffering from it. It’s time to change. It’s time to go inside and do some spiritual housecleaning. It’s time to be humble, be a good person and let what will be, be.

Namaste