HELPING OUR PETS ON THE PATH TO HEALING
Kathleen Prasad with Bruce Lee: ‘By awakening our connectedness, Reiki cultivates compassion for others, which in turn brings about healing transformation.’
AMONG THE MOST ANXIOUS times for pet lovers is when one of our animal companions becomes ill. It can happen so unexpectedly, and the decline in our pet’s health can be swift. One week it’s situation normal, and the next, our cat or dog isn’t eating and is barely able to move.
What we fear the most is that visit to the vet when we are presented with a serious or even terminal diagnosis. The harsh truth of impermanence becoming vividly real, we will do anything to help our pet through their illness—if such an outcome is possible. If not, we become achingly aware of the very limited time we have left with our loved one, and want to ensure that for however long it may be, they enjoy the best possible quality of life.
The purpose of this chapter is to offer suggestions about how we can help our pet in ways that complement whatever veterinary care they are receiving. It should perhaps go without saying that no vet is infallible, that the range of diagnostic options and treatments available are growing all the time, and that you shouldn’t feel awkward about seeking a second opinion. It is also the case that the range of complementary treatments on offer is also expanding. Acupuncture, herbal and other naturopathic remedies are becoming more widely available, offering new healing modalities for animals.
After you’ve brought your pet home from the vet, the worst part for pet lovers is the feeling of helplessness. Apart from the obvious things, what else can you do? You’d give anything to make sure your pet is comfortable and to show them how much you love them. But you may regard your options as limited. You may even believe that you are somehow letting down a being whose dependence on you is total.
Fortunately, there is something you can do. Something that not only connects you and your pet on an immediate, intuitive level, but that, from a Buddhist perspective, is of greater ultimate value than any of the other things being done for them.
Buddhism offers very specific and powerful healing techniques. Practising these techniques can lead us to a way of reframing how we think about our pets and the nature of disease. Conducted with bodhichitta motivation, and with our pet as the focus of our attention, the truth is that we also benefit, any sense of helplessness being replaced by one of profound connection and benevolence. And of course, meditation can have a powerful impact on the physical recovery of our beloved companion too.
A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO MIND AND BODY
The words ‘meditation’ and ‘medication’ are just one letter different. The reason being that they both come from the same Latin root, medeor, meaning ‘to heal’. ‘Heal’ also looks and sounds similar to ‘whole’ because they, too, have a shared source and meaning. Whether we meditate or medicate, we are seeking a return to healing or wholeness.
Why do we need to do this? What causes living beings to slip from ease to dis-ease in the first place?
Until recently, the focus of Western medicine was on repair rather than prevention and on material rather than energetic systems—the counterpoint to the Eastern approach. Genetic factors were also believed to hold the key to why some humans are more susceptible to certain illnesses than others. However, the Human Genome Project revealed that instead of the 120,000 plus genes humans were thought to possess, we have only 25,000—fewer than many animals, including even the humble sea urchin, and also many plants (rice has 38,000 genes). As cell biologist Bruce Lipton puts it: ‘There are simply not enough genes to account for the complexity of human life or of human disease.’1
Instead of single genes or small gene groups being associated with certain conditions, the reality is very much more complex. This has given rise to the field of epigenetics, which examines how and why genes are ‘switched’ on or off and, importantly, the impact of lifestyle and mental factors on physical wellbeing.
There is no reason to believe why this same interplay of mental and physical wellbeing isn’t as true for our pets as it is for us.
According to people engaged in the growing mind–body movement, physical disease is a manifestation of a disturbance of the mind. Our bodies don’t become ill, we become ill. Removing or repairing the physical symptoms of disease—narrow arteries, a tumour, inflamed joints—will be to little avail if we don’t also remove or repair the original cause of those symptoms in our consciousness.
By way of illustration, if we were driving along in our car and an unknown warning light suddenly appeared on the dashboard, chances are we’d take our car into a service centre to have it looked at. We’d realise that something was amiss and needed urgent attention.
If, while at the service centre, we saw a mechanic reach behind the dashboard, remove the offending light globe, and tell us that our problem was solved, well, even the least practical among us would see through that. Removing the warning light doesn’t fix the problem. It only removes the evidence that a problem exists.
In just the same way, treating the physical manifestation of disease, even successfully, does not equal treating the disease itself. Unless we look beyond the warning globe of sickness and deal with the underlying reason for it appearing, we risk far greater problems down the road.
This analogy is offered by authors Thorwald Dethlefsen and Ruediger Dahlke, MD, in their book, The Healing Power of Illness, which tells us: ‘Illness is not some accidental, and therefore disagreeable upset along the way, but the very way itself along which people can progress towards wholeness. The more consciously we can think about that way, the more likely is it to lead us to the goal. Our purpose is not to resist illness but to use it.’2
True healing, according to this view, must occur at the level of consciousness.
There is already ample evidence showing the negative impact of stress on physical wellbeing, whether human or animal. People who feel lonely and those who are pessimistic have been shown in separate studies to have significantly more compromised immune systems, suffer from higher blood pressure and be more likely to experience heart disease.3 There is no reason to believe that the same basic principle—that mind and body form a systemic whole—doesn’t also apply to animals. Along with growing evidence about the harmful impact of negative mental states on the body, there is also substantial evidence of the opposite—specifically, that meditative states promote physical healing.
In the past two decades in particular, a huge amount of research has been carried out establishing the powerful and measurable impacts of meditation on a large number of metrics which reflect our wellbeing. I provide a full description of these in my book Why Mindfulness Is Better Than Chocolate. Meditation has been shown to lower high blood pressure, reduce other stress markers and help treat heart disease. It boosts our immune systems, slows the ageing process, manages chronic pain and helps with inflammatory conditions. It also plays a role at an epigenetic level in preventing the expression of genes associated with serious illnesses, including cancer. In terms of psychological benefits, people who meditate regularly have greater emotional resilience; are less susceptible to depression, anxiety and loneliness; and their brains become rewired to be happier. There can be little doubt that if the benefits of meditation were available in capsule form, it would be the biggest selling drug of all time.
While meditation may be a powerful way for us to heal, to become whole, what is the evidence that we can promote healing in our pets by including them when we meditate? Empirical evidence has yet to be gathered, but there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence, in particular from those who practise reiki with animals.
Reiki comes from the Japanese words ‘rei’ meaning spirit and ‘ki’ meaning energy—in other words, ‘spiritual energy’. The practice of reiki in relation to animals can simply involve meditating with pets. There is no need to position oneself in a particular way, or to place your hands near or upon a pet. It is, rather, a matter of sitting quietly with an animal, and inviting that animal to be a part of one’s meditation, as described earlier in this book.
Frans and Bronwen Stiene are highly regarded reiki researchers, practitioners, teachers and authors who have spent much time in Japan studying traditional practices. Establishing the International House of Reiki in New South Wales, they have done much to translate the spirituality and practices of this tradition into a form that Westerners can relate to (see: http://www.ihreiki.com). This includes using reiki to help heal animals.
Kathleen Prasad, a California-based reiki teacher and author, who studied with the Stienes, has focused her reiki practice on animals, with the main emphasis being its healing power (see: www.animalreikisource.com). Using reiki to treat herself in 1998, she noticed how her dog Dakota was so drawn to her that he came to sit on her feet. She realised that Dakota tuned into the healing power of reiki without her needing to explicitly give it to him. As she puts it, ‘It was as if he was already fluent in a language much too subtle for me to sense.’
In Australia, Carolyn Trethewey is a leading advocate of animal reiki, working with a growing number of vets and animal rescue centres, and introducing the gentle power of meditation to many pets and their human companions (see: http://pausehq.com.au).
The combined experiences of these practitioners over countless interactions, as well as that of meditators from a variety of other backgrounds, has shown us that meditating with animals can contribute to healing in a number of important ways.
HOW MEDITATING CAN ASSIST IN HEALING OUR PETS
ENABLES SELF-REPAIR EVEN WHEN WE DON’T KNOW THE PRECISE CAUSE OF DISEASE
As pet lovers we can get anxious and frustrated when we don’t know exactly what’s wrong with our pet. Although increasingly sophisticated diagnostic aids are becoming available to vets, sometimes not even these can pinpoint precisely the cause of a pet’s sickness. What’s more, they may be so expensive that they’re out of financial reach, presenting pet lovers with the added dilemma of feeling guilty about not being able to afford to provide for their loved one.
Alternatively, it may be the case that, whatever diagnostics are carried out, the treatment options remain the same, so there is little point putting our animal companion through the trauma of yet another visit to the vet, anaesthesia, invasive procedures and postoperative pain for the sake of information that can’t be acted upon.
Meditating offers a completely different healing modality, giving our pets the best opportunity for self-repair, by providing the optimal context in which this can happen.
Carolyn Trethewey, of Pause, relates the story of Saba, a cocker spaniel, whose owner, Verity, was distraught. Saba had a serious spleen problem (ITP) and the vet believed that surgery would be needed. However, there was a problem: part of the spleen’s role is to store platelets but instead of storing the platelets, Saba’s body was destroying them. Until her platelet levels increased significantly, surgery was just too high a risk. What’s more, she wasn’t responding to the medicine she had been given to boost platelet production. Saba remained under round-the-clock observation at the clinic—in itself a cause of stress both to her and to Verity.
Carolyn offered to visit Saba. When she did, she immediately noticed how subdued and weak she seemed. Carolyn also took in the bright lights, powerful odours and general busyness of the clinic. Finding a quiet corner, she and Verity sat meditating with Saba—Carolyn offering Verity a simple, breathing meditation to practise. In her heart, Carolyn sought to communicate a simple message to Saba to let go of the lights and odours and noise of the vet clinic, as well as her own feelings of weakness.
Sitting together in silence, after some minutes, Saba settled next to her owner Verity, and fell asleep. Verity commented to Carolyn that Saba seemed more relaxed than she had been for a long while.
After the session, Carolyn left, and Saba went back to her cage. Verity later told her that Saba slept for fourteen hours straight. When she woke up the vet tested her platelet levels. They had returned to normal. After further diagnosis, the vet determined that no surgery would be required either. Saba was free to go home.
Dr Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School was the first to draw attention to the body’s ability to self-repair—if we give it the right conditions. Meditation is a state that optimises those conditions. It seems that when we meditate with pets, through their habit of entraining their minds with ours, they are able to benefit from whatever calmness and compassion we can offer. They appear capable of resonating with these same qualities themselves, and self-healing is promoted, irrespective of the nature or location of the disease from which they have been suffering.
SPEEDS UP HEALING, INCLUDING AFTER SURGERY
Dr Benson first came to understand the power of meditation to promote self-repair when observing patients recovering from heart attacks. Those who practised meditation recovered significantly more quickly than those who didn’t. ‘The relaxation response’, as he labelled it, not only helped patients enjoy greater levels of equanimity and wellbeing, it also accelerated self-repair. Our bodies can be highly effective at repairing themselves, as long as we provide them with the right circumstances to do so.
The same holds true of pets. When they are provided with optimised conditions, they too recover more quickly from illness and surgery. Meditating with them provides a powerfully beneficial context in which to aid their swift recovery. When we meditate with our pets, we help them enjoy positive mental states, including love, trust and wellbeing. The biological impact of these states is to increase the oxytocin in the body, a hormone that reduces stress and increases happiness, to multiply white blood cells, which help fight infection, and to bolster their immune defences. Meditating before surgery can help ensure the operation is more effective and meditating afterwards can help speed up healing.
As Kathleen Prasad puts it so beautifully: ‘By awakening this connectedness, Reiki cultivates compassion for others, which in turn brings about healing transformation.’
HELPS RELIEVE PAIN
Meditation is becoming more widely accepted as a pain-management method, especially for people who experience recurring or chronic pain, and sometimes in cases where all other options have been exhausted.
While it may seem counter-intuitive that increased focus can reduce the sensation of pain, there are different methods by which meditation can help us dissociate from feelings of pain—the pain signals are still being communicated, but we can turn down the volume. This pain-muting effect continues after a meditation session has ended. And, importantly, it is readily available even to those who have never meditated before—you don’t have to be a Zen master for it to work.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that animals, too, appear in less pain after spending time with a meditator than before. The same process of dissociation from pain seems to occur, and perhaps closer association with the positive state engendered through meditation, providing relief, comfort and enhanced feelings of wellbeing.
This question opens out to a broader one: is our pets’ experience of pain the same or different from ours? Similar neural pathways and activity may be present, but as alluded to above, the way in which we pay attention to pain can significantly alter our experience of its intensity.
It is also the case that we humans tend to overlay the experience of pain with cognitive activity that complicates and magnifies our suffering. A case of toothache can lead to thoughts like: the dentist is going to have to give me an injection and I hate those—they are agonising! This will probably lead to root-canal work—I’m looking at weeks of trauma! Dental bills are massively expensive—so much for my holiday plans! This is a truly awful financial blow! My clients/ boss/colleagues will hate me for being away right now and leaving them in the lurch—talk about a career-limiting crisis! I’m going to be a dribbling mess for the rest of the day—when Adam from accounts stops by this afternoon he’ll think I’m a shambles!
And so it goes on. By the time we have really worked up a negative head of steam, it’s hard to know how much our sense of existential angst is caused by the pain in our mouth, and how much by the thoughts about the pain in our mouth.
Do pets have similar cognition? We can’t know for sure, but observation suggests not. A relative absence of narrative chatter would imply that animals’ awareness of the here and now is generally greater than that of humans. This may mean that they tend not to overlay negative cognition onto physical pain. It could also mean that they are more available to our influence as meditators.
I have often had an intuitive feeling that my pets use mindfulness or meditation as a form of pain management. Having no access to paracetamol or other pain-killers, unlike us they can’t just head for the bathroom cabinet and pop a pill if they get a headache. All they are left with is their mind—and perhaps the possibility of disassociating from pain as much as possible?
We know that cats sometimes purr to cope with pain and to promote healing. Whether or not this occurs instinctively or through conscious choice is something we’re not currently clear about. But whether instinctive or innate, vets often remark about the high levels of stoicism shown by many pets in the face of discomfort and pain that would reduce humans to a state of abject misery. This stoicism can only be enhanced if we are able to offer not only pharmacological solutions, but also a presence of compassion, trust and love.
REDUCES THE SIDE EFFECTS OF TREATMENT
Many of us have experienced the side effects of medical treatment. Whether it’s the constipation sometimes caused by pain-killers, or the more serious and global side effects associated with chemotherapy such as nausea, mouth sores, hair loss and fatigue, we have all witnessed if not personally experienced what happens when our bodies recover from medical intervention.
Among the many clinical studies of meditation in recent years has been its impacts on the recovery journeys of patients. As has been observed many times since Dr Herbert Benson, meditation has been shown both to enhance and speed up the recovery process, as well as to reduce the sometimes harmful impact of side effects, in quite profound ways.
Controlled studies have shown how meditation in humans helps lower stress symptoms, fatigue and feelings of nausea, and improves mood, energy levels and immune function among patients being treated with chemotherapy.4
The same trends have been observed when meditating with pets. Their ability to get over sessions at the animal hospital or clinic, and return to a state of wellbeing, is enhanced.
There is a further benefit for those animals who are highly reactive. Their temperaments may be such that they are naturally highly strung, restless or agitated, or visits to the vet may make them more anxious and perturbed than usual—the very opposite state from the one in which healing happens. But meditating with animals who are behaving like this can settle them, for at least the duration of the session, enabling them to get into self-repair mode and into the most conducive state, when the impact of the traditional treatment can be optimised.
As Kathleen Prasad observes, ‘Through the mindful presence that Reiki meditation cultivates, we can more easily navigate our life’s challenges with grace and surrender while we learn to listen to and be present for animals in a compassionate space. In this way we learn to share precious moments of healing with them.’
OFFERS PSYCHOLOGICAL AS WELL AS PHYSICAL HEALING
Returning to wholeness may be as much about healing the mind as the body. Carolyn Trethewey relates the story of a visit to the Cat Haven in the Perth suburb of Shenton Park, where she regularly meditates with cats who find themselves there for a variety of reasons.
On occasion Carolyn may be asked to meditate with a particular cat, and one day a staff member asked her to sit with a cat called Finlay who was showing a lot of aggression. The Cat Haven has a proactive approach to finding homes for cats, using social media highly effectively. But not even the cutest Facebook posting was going to lead to a ‘furrever home’ for Finlay if he continued to lash out angrily at visitors.
The condos in which the cats are housed include an open area, a toilet area and a private section where cats can go if they don’t wish to be disturbed. Arriving at Finlay’s condo, Carolyn saw he was in the private section. When she tentatively opened the door, he reacted by arching his back and baring his teeth angrily, his fur standing on end.
She closed the door immediately, and found a place to meditate just outside his condo. Given the strength of the reaction she had just encountered, she had no great expectation that her session would have any impact. But she could try.
Carolyn has a sense that the pet she is with ‘connects’ when she feels her meditation deepen. And that was exactly what happened during the session that followed. Sitting on the other side of the door from Finlay, she continued to meditate, evoking a peaceful mind–body state.
After about fifteen minutes an image suddenly came to mind. It was of a cat wrapped in a sheet or blanket being swung around and around like a lasso. She had no doubt where the image came from, suggesting the horrifying cause of Finlay’s trauma. The cruelty of it shocked her. But having acknowledged it, she let it go, and continued to hold onto the peaceful state. She meditated for another quarter of an hour before ending. And, curious though she was to open the door again to Finlay, she intuitively felt it would be better to simply slip away.
When she got to the Cat Haven the following week, the same staff member who had asked her to sit with Finlay told her he had become a completely different cat. Since her last visit, he had been friendly and purring. Such a delight, in fact, that he had been taken home by a new family.
‘Finlay was ready to let go of that experience,’ observes Carolyn. ‘Animals can do this much more quickly than we can. Sometimes all it takes is our compassionate presence for them to be able to let go of past hurts, and be ready to move on with their lives. Animals’ past experiences can and do impact them deeply and just as we are sometimes just not ready to let go of something yet, it’s the same for the animals. Finlay was ready, and in doing so his connection to his centre, to who he really is, was deepened strongly. It is a testament to animals that they are able to let go a lot more easily than humans do—this is one of the many lessons they are here to teach us.’
This story accords with the psychological or energetic shifts we have already noted in previous chapters. Returning to wholeness is as much a matter of mind as it is of body. Providing our pets with the space and state in which to let go is one of the special services we can offer when we meditate with them.
HELPS OUR PETS WHEN PHYSICAL HEALING ISN’T POSSIBLE
There can come a point when we’re out of options, or the options available will do little to prolong the quality, as well as the quantity, of our pet’s life. Sometimes this point is clearly signposted. At other times it is a recognition that evolves over a period of several days or more. The time may come when we realise that allowing our pet a natural death may be a wiser and more compassionate choice than further intervention and prolonged suffering.
Having set out to help achieve full physical recovery for our pet, as well as the elimination of whatever mental origins of disease may exist, have we failed? Does this mean that healing meditation does not work? Or that our concentration isn’t good enough for it to work? These important questions are sometimes asked and they deserve to be answered.
It may be that your pet’s karma is so strong that you don’t have the power to alter the course of the physical disease. Because we are born as sentient beings on planet earth, we all have the karma to die. That karma may be what your pet is currently dealing with, just as, in our own time, we will all die of something too, no matter how accomplished we may become as meditators.
But this doesn’t mean that our meditation has been a waste of effort. Every time we sit to meditate with our pet, we are creating new, positive causes for future positive effects in their mind stream, as well as our own. We are helping purify negativities that have the potential to lead to future illness and suffering, and are mitigating—and, who knows, maybe even completely removing—the cause that triggered the onset of this particular disease.
If our purpose is not to help our pets resist illness, but to use the illness as a means of progressing to wholeness, then there can be fewer more powerful ways to respond to disease than by using it as the means to deepen a meditation practice. If we assume a more panoramic perspective, rather than one focusing on immediate outcomes in this lifetime alone, we can give our pet no greater gift than meditation in their final days, weeks or months. Even when physical recovery is no longer an option, the opportunity for them to approach their final transition with a mind influenced by love and compassion is the most extraordinarily precious and rare privilege we can bestow. We are offering them a direct cause for their own future enlightenment.
It is not necessary to learn a specific meditation to help your pet through illness. As animal reiki practitioners have demonstrated, simply being present with an open heart is enough to provide a healing context for your pet.
What’s more, even if you are a complete newcomer to meditation, you should not underestimate the impact your meditation is having. Starting out, your subjective experience may be that your thoughts are all over the place and you may question the benefits of what you are doing. But the measurable, scientific reality is that meditation profoundly changes body and mind. When we meditate with our pet, this shift in state affects them too.
There is, in Tibetan Buddhism, a range of meditations developed specifically for healing, both ourselves and others. I share two of these below, and you may like to try them out. If you like one in particular, or you feel your pet is really benefiting, stick with it. If you like two or three of the meditations shared in this book, feel free to rotate them. The effect of using different meditations is a bit like using different gym equipment. Their combined use can offer great, holistic benefit. What’s important is not to switch mid-way through a session, but always stick with one particular meditation type for the duration of each session in order to deepen familiarity and develop concentration.
TAKING AND GIVING MEDITATION (TONG LEN)
Tong len is a foundational meditation in Tibetan Buddhism in which we envision taking away the suffering of others and giving them happiness. There are many different versions of this meditation. The following is a very simple version, and no less powerful because of that.
Adopt the optimal meditation posture—remember to keep a straight back.
Take a few deep breaths and exhale. As you do, imagine you are letting go of all thoughts, feelings and experiences. As far as possible try to be pure consciousness, abiding in the here and now.
Begin your meditation with the following motivation:
By the practice of this meditation, may NAME of PET and all living beings be immediately, completely and permanently purified of all disease, pain, sickness and suffering.
May this meditation be a direct cause for us to attain enlightenment,
For the benefit of all living beings without exception.
Focusing on your in-breaths, imagine that you are inhaling radiant, white light. This light represents healing, purification, balance and blissful energy. Imagine it filling your body, until every cell is completely permeated with it. Keep on breathing like this, with the focus on the qualities of the light that you inhale.
After some minutes, change the focus of your attention to your exhalations. Visualise that you exhale a dark, smoke-like light. The darkness represents whatever pain, illness or potential for illness, negativity of body, speech or mind you experience. With each out-breath imagine you are able to release more and more of this negativity. Keep on breathing like this, with the focus on the qualities of the light that you exhale.
After some minutes, combine the two, so that you are both letting go of negativity and illness as well as breathing in radiant wellbeing.
Now that you have some practice, imagine that you are inhaling and exhaling these qualities on behalf of your pet/s. Whatever you breathe in, you direct into their being. Whatever you exhale, you do so on their behalf. You are a conduit for healing energy, and for letting go of all suffering.
Make this the main focus of your meditation session—the taking away of your pet’s sickness and suffering and the giving of purification, healing and wellbeing. You may decide to assign, say, three or four breaths to each of the following qualities to give structure to your meditation:
| In-breaths | Out-breaths |
| Taking in healing energy | Getting rid of all physical and mental disease |
| Complete purification/cleansing/ healing | All physical sickness/pain/ suffering |
| Radiant wellbeing—energy and vitality | All mental negativity/distress/ anxiety |
| Peace, balance, mental tranquillity | Hatred, craving and all delusions |
| Love and compassion |
End the session as you began:
By the practice of this meditation, may NAME of PET and all living beings be immediately, completely and permanently purified of all disease, pain, sickness and suffering.
May this meditation be a direct cause for us to attain enlightenment,
For the benefit of all living beings without exception.
If you are a newcomer to Medicine Buddha, you can find an image of him on my blog, under the category, Medicine Buddha (www.davidmichie.com). In the same blog I have also provided a link to a video showing how to pronounce his mantra as well as other resources. I suggest you become acquainted with both the visualisation and the mantra before trying out the meditation.
Adopt the optimal meditation posture—remember to keep a straight back.
Take a few deep breaths and exhale. As you do, imagine you are letting go of all thoughts, feelings and experiences. As far as possible try to be pure consciousness, abiding in the here and now.
Begin your meditation with the following motivation:
By the practice of this meditation, may NAME of PET and all living beings be immediately, completely and permanently purified of all disease, pain, sickness and suffering.
May this meditation be a direct cause for us to attain enlightenment,
For the benefit of all living beings without exception.
Visualise Medicine Buddha sitting facing you, at about the height of your forehead, a few metres in front of you. Don’t worry if your visualisation isn’t great. An orb of dark blue light will suffice. If you struggle with that, even his imagined presence is enough. The more real you can make it, the better. Try to get into the way of thinking that if you were to raise your eyes/open your eyes, you would find yourself looking directly into his.
Recollect the key visual elements of Medicine Buddha—his radiant, lapis lazuli blue-coloured body is the symbol of healing energy. The medicine plant he is holding in his right hand, and bowl of purifying nectar he is holding in his lap with his left hand, both reflect the healing power of his presence.
Going beyond the visual, try to imagine how his presence would feel. If you have ever experienced the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, this may suggest something to you. Sometimes Medicine Buddha is described as being everything beautiful dissolved into one. Imagine he is gazing at you and your pet/s with more love than a mother for her only child. His is an incredibly powerful, compassionate being and when you invoke him, you should feel that he is definitely in your presence, wanting nothing more than to help you and those you care for.
Recite his mantra:
Tayatha Om Bekadeze Bekadeze Maha Bekadze Bekadze Radza Samungate Soha
Pronounced: Tie-ya-tar, Om beck-and-zay beck-and-zay ma-ha beck-and-zay beck-and-zay run-zuh sum-oon-gut-eh so-ha (The ‘oon’ syllable to rhyme with the double ‘o’ in ‘look’).
In general, mantras should be whispered so that only you can hear them. But when reciting this mantra for your pet’s benefit, I suggest you murmur or whisper it loud enough for them to hear.
Keep repeating the mantra.
Once you are familiar with the mantra, build in the visualisation of blue healing lights and nectars radiating from Medicine Buddha’s heart. These flow directly through the crown of your head into your body, and also into the body of your pet. You and your pet are now filled with the most powerful healing energy. Visualise this endless outpouring of radiant, healing light, while continuing the mantra recitation.
As you recite the mantra, it is useful to visualise specific results with each mantra, or perhaps cycles of three or four mantras, such as:
Removal of all pain and suffering
Healing of all physical disease
Eliminating all mental afflictions and distress
Purifying all possible future causes of disease
Bestowing of energy and robust good health
Abundance of happiness, love and compassion
As with most meditations, the more personal and direct you can make your meditation the better. So if you know your rabbit has kidney problems, direct at least some of your focus to healing her kidneys. You don’t need to be an anatomical expert for this. It is more about intentionality and directing your thoughts for this specific purpose. Holistic healing is also very useful for the reason explained at the start of this chapter—that is, beneath the physical manifestation the cause in consciousness can also be addressed.
For some periods you may wish simply to focus on the visualisation, and give the mantra recitation a break. Or vice versa. Try to keep as fresh as possible the collective practice of the strongly imagined presence of Medicine Buddha, the visualisation of healing lights and nectars, and the mantra recitation.
Continue like this until you end the session as you began:
By the practice of this meditation, may NAME of PET and all living beings be immediately, completely and permanently purified of all disease, pain, sickness and suffering.
May this meditation be a direct cause for us to attain enlightenment,
For the benefit of all living beings without exception.
If you are especially drawn to Medicine Buddha meditation, you may like to buy mala beads—like a rosary—and set yourself the objective of completing, say, one, three, five or seven rounds of mantras in each session. A mala typically has 108 beads, but this is counted as 100, allowing leeway for mispronunciations, inattention and so on.
THE FORCE IS WITH YOU!
When practising a healing meditation, no matter how uncertain or tentative you may feel to begin with, there is no need to feel helpless or inadequate; there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. Not only is the material world less solid than it appears, and more illusion-like than we may comprehend, but matter is also energy—our thoughts, speech and actions have an energetic quality to them. When channelled in a skilful way, and used to invoke other unseen and incredibly powerful energetic forces, like those of Medicine Buddha, we are more than one person sitting alone in a room with a sick pet. Instead we become a conduit for healing energy and benevolent purpose greater than we can possibly comprehend.
RESONANCE AND THE POWER OF MEDITATION
Resonance is a fascinating concept, especially for those who practise meditation–mantra recitation in particular. The term offers a possible explanation for how memory and habit become engrained in nature.
It has been shown that actions undertaken in the past become easier and more effective for different living beings to carry out in the future. For example, if rats are taught a new trick in a laboratory in Los Angeles, rats in laboratories in other parts of the world generally learn that same new trick more quickly. The more people who practise a new skill, like windsurfing, the easier it becomes for others who come to windsurfing to learn that skill.
A good example is the Flynn Effect. Over time, people score higher and higher on standard IQ tests. Average scores of 100 rise steadily over a period of years. There is no indication that people are becoming more intelligent, merely that they are getting better at doing those particular tests. When the tests are revised, as they are periodically, scores once again return to 100.
The theory of resonance suggests that when we do something that has been done before, we become linked, through an organising pattern of influence, or a field, to others who have done the same thing. We resonate with them. Like other fields—electric, magnetic, radiation—the field may be invisible, but its effects are not. And it reaches over time and space.
What happens when we recite a mantra that has been repeated by millions of people for thousands of years? We bring ourselves into resonance with them. We benefit from their cumulative influence, just as we contribute to that influence ourselves.
As we sit in our room reciting mantras, we may be physically alone or with our pet, but in a different way we are tuning into an influence and community, an energetic field reaching back through the centuries to include everyone else in our tradition.