May-June 2000

Brazilian lama, California-based Segyu Rinpoche, a student of the Venerable Lati Rinpoche, talked to Mandala about his healing work, specifically with patients who experience harm from spirits.

From Buddhism’s point of view, there are several realms of existence: hell beings, hungry ghost spirits, animals, humans, demigods and gods. Spirits are beings trapped in a non-physical form in the lower realms.

We manifest as human beings, but there are other beings that are close to us due to our karmic connection with them. Depending upon the elements in the environment, certain classes of spirits will gravitate to a specific place. Some are smell eaters; others eat blood or meat depending upon their malevolence.

There are benevolent as well as malevolent spirits. Most of the spirits that have been tamed are benevolent and do good work as guardians and helpers. Dharma protectors recruit them like a teacher recruits his students; they tame spirits, and help those consciousnesses evolve in their own mode of reality to get better conditions in a human form.

How can you tell if sicknesses are caused by spirits?

It’s not that easy for most of us. Tibetan medicine is very complex and large. There are three parts: somatic medicine, which is regular medicine, Dharmic medicine and tantric medicine. Those doctors who recognize by pulse, preliminaries and interviews are not only doctors but also lamas, yogis with realizations to help make the correct assessment. They do it by their doctor-lama realizations. By training, by their own practices, they are able to do that. They can bring other tools to help with the diagnosis like divinations, oracles and various other mechanisms.

Can the doctor-lama prescribe for all three levels of medicine?

Yes, if he is well accomplished, if he has trained in more advanced sadhanas. His skills in the pujas and tantric practices to generate the mandalas, to invoke the deities, help the patient. When they do not have the skills, the doctor makes a diagnosis and then refers the patient to a lama, and the lama would make an assessment and perform the proper pujas and so forth.

Are spirit harms common in the sicknesses you see?

Very common. We have so much environmental disease and a fair amount of disturbances. Also elements of nature create disturbances. These are not spirit harms but external causes that disturb our elements and could harm the mental health.

Even minor ailments can be caused by spirits. They disturb the wind energy, the lung. The energy gets dense, and then the mind gets sunk into a pattern of behavior. We have been chased by these spirits for many lifetimes. Nevertheless, the attacks are not sometimes one by one. If you are not protected, there are other beings out there with similar thoughts. The spirits get greedy, so they harm themselves and cannot liberate themselves. They are in much worse condition than we are. Some spirits see the body as a source of energy and are like vampires. They have to use desperation to suck away that energy. They harm themselves and harm us by creating negative karma for both.

How can we distinguish between spirits and superstition?

This is not important. If we become too picky, we will become paranoid. The important thing is not to be ignorant of those factors. The protection is refuge. By taking refuge, we are completely protected. The Buddha and the enlightened ones protect us because we are the ones doing our sadhanas and have knowledge to understand the processes and can change the unfavorable conditions into favorable ones.

The better we understand the Dharma, the more we accumulate merit to realign conditions to avoid being so vulnerable. It is extremely important to take refuge.

Is a spirit a preta or hungry ghost then?

It could be a preta, a hell being or an animal. There are subtle levels of spirits. For example, nagas are water serpents and snakes. They can cause cancer, skin disease, and leprosy because they have relations between the earth element and the space element. The earth element affects the skin. There are eight great groups of spirits. In these groups, there are subdivisions. The categories are based on the proportions of the four elements. When we are able to see the elements affected, we can distinguish the kind of spirit and make the person stronger, not so vulnerable to the interaction.

Secondly, we protect the person by doing pujas and try to put the spirits under the guidance of the guardians, who will take care of their evolution.

The person will accumulate merit as well by removing harm from the body and mind. A lot of people think that when we do pujas the idea is to kill the spirits. You cannot do that. If you do, you break the vow of killing because the spirits are still consciousness. We have to have compassion and generate loving kindness for those spirits that one day they will become enlightened.

Last night I got the news that someone had been killed in a car accident inMorocco. This morning someone brought the picture of the person, and I said, “This person was killed by external causes. There are some spirits involved.” Someone called and said I had seen this person two years ago. I looked into my folder and saw that she came for a vision quest and was dealing with forces that she thought were not appropriate. I told her, “Be careful. You’re in danger.” I prescribed a treatment, but the person did not come to receive it. Then it happened again. A lot of people are playing with shamanism and vision quests and very-New Age things, but it’s really extremely dangerous because it could lead to death and create very strong obstacles to your evolution.

Everything is not just due to spirits, which a lot of people also say. It is only your inner imbalances together with the pattern of behavior and mental attitude you have. Spirits can become an excuse.

Sometimes we hear that when we go into a forest and we need to urinate that we may disrupt the nagas. Is there any protection for that?

Just to be aware about the environment. In every environment, there are other realities that are interconnected. When you go to someone else’s house, you knock on the door and say, “Hi, how are you? Can I come in?” Isn’t that right? And you say, “Can I use your bathroom?” When you go into the forest, you can say, “Hi, may I come into the forest? Please, spirits, I come in peace. Coming to your home, I just want to rejoice.” They would then welcome you.

This kind of attitude is important to avoid invading their realms. When lamas do the initiations, one of the first things they do is [make an offering to the local spirits] and say, “Please welcome me. First I am offering to the landlord spirit, the lord of the land. We are here to practice Dharma peacefully. You may participate, but those of you who do not want to participate, go away.” So just be aware, and enjoy nature in the same way.

If you go and don’t know what to do, then it will create problems. Here we don’t have much of that, but in places likeIndia,NepalandBrazilpeople make a lot of offerings in nature. You should not urinate or defecate in places where you make offerings. InIndia, they try to make the offerings in the same place. Since it has already been used for that, you put them only there and not everywhere.

When you move around in a city, you do not need to [make an offering]. What you should do are quick prayers and mantras to multiply the offerings. Second, purify the environment. That is why people throw rice. The spirits enjoy it and rejoice.

Even though you might go into the forest, say, with good intentions, do you still cause harm to the spirits?

You have to understand that intention is the mental factor for action, and action is karma. Even though the action is wholesome, it could create bad imprints. How do we know? By wisdom. Good intention is not sufficient. You also have to have wisdom. Be humble and do the practice properly. In order words, think, “I wish all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. I wish all beings are free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all beings never be separated from their gurus. May all beings have a supportive community, and offer to the Three Jewels.” That will generate a positive energy to benefit the environment. That is much more natural than creating paranoia in whatever you do.

In Tibetan medicine, it is important to work with the internal energies. We have a system developed to work with them. We study the whole: the anatomy, the physical, the spirits, astrology, tantra. The planets and elements tell us when it is appropriate to do a certain puja. By knowing the person, we can see what puja will be most appropriate. We have to calculate that.

Tags: healing, health, segyu rinpoche