Overview of Medicine Buddha Puja

Medicine Buddha is one of the practices recommended by Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche for inner and outer prosperity. In particular for Dharma Centres not to struggle and practioners to have the resources to meditate on the Lam Rim

DATE: Tibetan 8th Day each month. 2026: April 24th, May 24th, June 22nd online only, July 22nd
TIME: 10:30 am to 11:30 am
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Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised that Dharma centers should perform the Medicine Buddha puja to bring peace and happiness, as well as inner and outer prosperity. Here we share Rinpoche discussing these benefits of Medicine Buddha practice in a teaching excerpt from the 36th Kopan Course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2003. 

“Medicine Buddha is very important, to make everything easy, so you can work with less pressure, so you can meditate on the lamrim, and you have more time to have an easy-going life.”
— Lama Zopa Rinpoche

“In the past, why Buddhism spread so well in Tibet and was able to go for a long time, why so many people were able to learn, to practice and to become bodhisattvas and why so many became enlightened, it is said, was because the Medicine Buddha practice spread out so much. I think especially the Fifth Dalai Lama very strongly emphasized the Medicine Buddha practice. I think the Fifth Dalai Lama composed this long version of the Medicine Buddha practice. Because of that, so much development happened in Tibet, to be able to practice the Dharma, to spread the Dharma, and there was so much peace and happiness in Tibet. It is explained this is due to the practice of Medicine Buddha. All sentient beings’ wishes were fulfilled, and there was inner prosperity and outer prosperity, wealth.

“So, if centers have many expenses and need financial support, if they need external prosperity and inner prosperity, I would like to emphasize this. I did mention this to one person at a center in America, and I would like to emphasis that all the centers on the Tibetan eighth [of the month] should do Medicine Buddha puja. As the Fifth Dalai Lama explained how great success happened in Tibet because of this, it is the same with our centers. So, on the Tibetan eighth, please do Medicine Buddha puja. Normally many centers do Tara puja, especially the older centers, but I want to emphasize that all the centers, especially the organization, do Medicine Buddha puja. Many people love to do Tara puja, as a female deity, so you can do Tara puja in the afternoon or evening and do the Medicine Buddha puja in the morning, because you have to abstain from black food: onions, garlic and meat, things like that. Therefore, it’s good to do it in the morning, before the meal.

“So, I thought that within the organization, the organizers don’t have to suffer, they don’t have to struggle with finances, they don’t have to struggle with so many things and they can have a very easy life with inner and outer prosperity. The organization has been developed over so many years with so much struggle, so many hardships, so much pain, struggling how to make the center more beneficial for sentient beings, how to make the center more accessible. With so much worry and fear, how to keep the center running, how to survive the next month. With many years of learning, going through so many hardships, so much pain, they have become really developed now, so beneficial; they are able to establish very good programs, good education, so people can learn Buddhist philosophy and do retreats. They have been able to create the conditions to offer this. Now, it is much better, much easier, because they have gained so much experience, building the experience for many, many years on how to do things. In the beginning, they had so much difficulty.”Please continue to read this full advice on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. 

Excerpted from a teaching given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 36th Kopan Course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2003. Lightly edited by Gordon McDougall.