Medicine Buddha is Big Health
Years ago, in his landmark book, Zen Mind Beginners Mind, the great Suzuki Roshi talked about big mind. The origin of the word Bud means big, big enough to hold everything in love. Medicine Buddha has that same quality of big, big enough to hold whatever we have to deal with in a healing way. Medicine Buddha helps us hold our problems and our healing path as the basic elements for healing everyone and everything in the universe. It is really important to remember that. When we practice Menla, sure, we hope to get better ourselves, but doing that is in the spirit of being better able to help others. If we are well, we are usually better able to help others. Sometimes nothing helps, and at that time, how we hold our problem can also help others. If we can manage some kind of smile, no matter how faint, for our situation in life, the world becomes a healing place.
