NEWS--NEW YEAR'S INSURANCE: 
THE MEDICINE MASTER REPENTANCE

At the beginning of the lunar new year, members of the four assemblies (bhikshus, bhiksunis, laymen, and laywomen) gathered at Gold Wheel Temple in Los Angeles to begin the new year with a Medicine Master Buddha Dharma Assembly. For three days the great assembly bowed the Medicine Master Repentance and appealed to Medicine Master Buddha, who dispels calamities and lengthens life, to help make the coming year a peaceful one. The Repentance Dharma includes the recitation of mantras and mindfulness of Medicine Master Buddha through recitation of his name as well as bowing and chanted repentances. Well over a hundred members of the Los Angeles Buddhist community came to participate and support the New Year's event. The following is a verse composed by the Venerable Abbot of Gold Wheel Temple in commemoration of the auspicious occasion.

Medicine Master’s Dharma meeting ushers in good luck.

The city of Los Angeles avoids calamities.

Good and faithful donors alike are vigorous.

Human and divine protectors are busy, busy, all.

Sincerity brings responses of more blessings and long life.

Joy and giving, kindness, compassion insure a peace to come.

Shocking heaven and shaking earth like springtime thunderclaps,

The sounding drum and ringing bells alter the ten directions.

The Venerable Abbot comments:

Medicine Master’s Dharma meeting ushers in good luck. Someone says, "Dharma Master, that first line is totally incorrect. The first night you came to Los Angeles a disaster hit. High winds and heavy rains wracked residential areas. How can this be called ushering in good luck?"

You should know that the most auspicious thing is that great disasters can turn into small storms and small storms completely disappear. How do you know if we hadn't been bowing the Medicine Master Repentance that the storm wouldn't have continued or even increased? Because we are bowing the Medicine Master Repentance, the skies cleared immediately and there is no more storm. So we can say that the Dharma Assembly "ushers in good luck."

People are a mixture of good and bad. The same combination exists in Los Angeles. Sometimes good people have to suffer what is due the bad people and sometimes bad people can reap the benefit due the good. So the good had to suffer a disaster, but by the same token, due to the good people, the disaster has diminished in its proportions, and the bad people enjoy that effect as well. The same principle applies to earthquakes: severe earthquakes turn into minor tremors and minor tremors vanish before they appear.

With this first bowing of the Medicine Master Repentance in this country, there is certain to be tremendous response.

The city of Los Angeles avoids calamities. Cities have in them every kind of bad person imaginable and there are many unreasonable and unprincipled people who live in this city as well.

So the good people who live here have to suffer the retributions due the bad and have to endure calamities. But you should realize the calamities have already been considerably diminished—due to the effect of the good people.

Good and faithful donors alike are vigorous. Here in the Medicine Master Dharma Assembly the good men and faithful women, the Dharma protecting donors, have come together to be vigorous and bow the Medicine Master Repentance, hold the Medicine Master mantra, and be mindful of Medicine Master Buddha. They are all very sincere and vigorous together.

Human and divine, protectors are busy, busy, all. The Dharma protectors among people and the Dharma protectors of the gods, dragons and others in the eight divisions are all busy. Everyone is super busy. The Dharma protectors among people are preparing vegetarian food, standing in the kitchen all day long with their hands and feet never still. And the gods and dragons are up there getting the clouds to move back and pass out from over us a little more quickly. Everyone is very busy.

Sincerity brings responses of more blessings and long life. If you can be sincere there will be a response. Your blessings and lifespan will increase.

Joy and giving, kindness, compassion insure a peace to come. If you can be happy, or practice giving, or give rise to compassion, then based on the power of the Medicine Master Dharma Assembly, the entire year will be very peaceful.

Shocking heaven and shaking earth like springtime thunderclaps. The Medicine Master Dharma Assembly startles the heavens and moves the earth such is its magnitude of importance. As we bow the repentance here, in the heavens a reflection of our bowing appears as the gods there look at the "television." They see us very clearly and ask, "That's good to see. Look at those two youths. How sincere they are!"

The sounding drum and ringing bells alter the ten directions. The ghosts and spirits, people and animals, and other beings in the ten directions can change from bad to good when they hear this sound. They can be taught and transformed.