Ayurveda Healing Arts Institute
of the Medicine Buddha Healing Center

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Ayurveda teaches us how to create balance in order to realize health. Thus, by being healthy we have the possibility of more easily being able to fulfill our life purpose (to do our dharma, our tao or path). Through balance we are able to bring harmony to ourselves and to those around us. As we understand our body-mind-spirit connection we are able to extend the span of life and create longevity. The main purpose of the science of Ayurveda is to create self-understanding, to attain mastery, and to know ourselves so that eventually we can realize liberation (Nirvana, Moksha, or enlightenment). Recognize that our bodies are constantly changing and that we live in a world of duality (yin and yang, right and left, down and up, female and male, cold and hot, heavy and light, oily and dry, big and small, dark and light, et cetera) and that our job is to join with the part of us that is always there - the knower, the seer, the infinite source, the fundamental Buddha Nature, the God Consciousness. With practice and mastery of ourselves we become free of suffering (we transform and transcend it). And as we awaken to our true potential, we create freedom in our bodies and minds. Ayurveda recognizes that we came to this Earth to remember who we are and to follow that dharma, that purpose which is to learn to take care of this physical existence – to respect all life and all living beings equally. Once that harmony is established, we become conscious of everything that there is.

Our nature is divine (Fundamental Buddha Nature - the Buddha Matrix or Tathagata Garbha) and everything that we need to know is already available; it is already within us. As we learn to open this channel through meditation, everything is given. The Divine Mother (Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva) has given a pharmacology; there is medicine available for everything that we do. When we support our body with these principles, we are open to the unlimited possibilities and potential to live our life as we were truly meant to be – our birthright, our "Big Tao", the Bodhisattva Path. When we miss the target, we are able to wake up and do it again until we become master of the vehicle.

The science of Ayurveda brings about an opportunity to successfully be happy and alive. It offers multiple opportunities and training for living in this world. Most of all, this science offers us how to find our Dharma and the consequences that we suffer when we do not follow our one true changeless compassion heart.

Ayurveda's goal is to achieve health by working towards balance and harmony. Thus, this system of health care recognizes the importance of physical balance, emotional release, mental health, environmental mindfulness, and spiritual progression (Bodhi resolve and spiritual cultivation) in the total health picture. This is the only natural healing system of medicine that recognizes ten different metabolic types or constitutions.

Ayurveda is an all-inclusive body of knowledge which uses a low-tech approach to healing, it is a system that can be adapted to all peoples and climates. Using natural forces such as heat, cold, light, herbs, foods, minerals, exercise, and working with the mind and emotions through meditation, chanting, prayer and mantras Ayurveda may be the basis of a global medicine, accessible and affordable to all.