ABC
Religious texts
Religious schools and traditions
Heavenly beings and deities
Legendary and historical figures
Legendary and real places
Symbols and art
Doctrines and rituals
- Awakening
- Community
- Compassion
- Craving
- Dependent origination
- Dharma
- Eightfold Path
- Emptiness
- Five Precepts
- Four Noble Truths
- Happiness
- Heavens and hells
- Impermanence
- Karma
- Koan
- Kung fu
- Meditation
- Merit
- Mindfulness
- Nirvana
- Non-self
- Om (mani padme hum)
- Parinirvana
- Pilgrimage sites
- Prajnaparamita
- Puja
- Pure lands
- Realms of existence
- Rebirth
- Recitation
- Renunciation
- Ritual
- Self
- Suffering
- Tales of rebirth
- Three Jewels
- Three-body doctrine
- Universal ruler
- Vesak
- Ye-dhamma formula
- Yoga
Medicine Buddha
Heavenly beings and deities
The figure of Medicine Buddha (Skt. Bhaishajyaguru, from bhaishajya, ‘medicine’, and guru, ‘teacher’, Chin. yaoshi fo or yaoshi rulai, Jap. yakushi nyorai) goes back to the idea that the Buddha viewed his teachings as a remedy for human suffering in the world. In Mahayana Buddhism, this led to the invention of a separate Buddha. The Medicine Buddha promises to cure devotees of illness and physical deformities, and also affords them protection from danger. In art, he is depicted holding a medicine bowl or a myrobalan plant, which is widely used in Asian medicine.