The Buddhist tradition also knows a Medicine Buddha, who is known as Bhaisajyaguru and who is remembered as a figure of compassion, intelligence, and nurturing with suffering in general. He is not invoked as a representation of magic but as a figure of balance between body and mind. The figure of a Medicine Buddha is common in some corner of a house or a meditation room or a shrine.
The Medicine Buddha has a deep blue body, symbolizing serenity and the sky. In one hand, he possesses an offering container, which symbolizes healing not healing to cure, but healing as an offering of attention. In some representations, there is a small healing plant inside the offering container, symbolizing knowledge or patience, which symbolizes healing. All these symbols symbolize something, although they seem simple in appearance because they have meaning that stretches over time.
Statues of the Medicine Buddha are actively used for meditation, prayer, and healing rituals among the Himalayan and Nepali Buddhists. Meditators and prayerful individuals find themselves in the presence of the statue, chanting mantras and reflecting on the values that the Buddha has come to represent over the years. Keeping one's mind steady through meditation during times of stress and uncertainty is helpful.
A large number of the Medicine Buddha statues from the Himalayan region are made by “hand,” so stone or wood is carved or metal is cast in traditional ways requiring time and skill. Variations in detail are inevitable in what is made by “hand,” and these are what make the presence of the particular statue of the Medicine Buddha so real in the Bhaisajyaguru figurine.
“This is how Himalayan Buddhist art is distinguished from other mass-produced religious gifts,” describing how the process for creating Himalayan Buddhist artwork takes a longer time, which is highlighted by cultural memory over perfecting it. The goal of the artwork “is not decoration, but meaning.”
Having an image like a statue of the Medicine Buddha close by could be of some use as a reminder to stop and breathe and interact with the world, as it would symbolize concern for the physical body as well as the soul. It would gradually fill the spaces of life with an awareness that transcends them.
