Can we pray to Medicine Buddha for financial help as well as health?

Yes. Understanding Medicine Buddha’s vows shows that his concern extends beyond healing illness and averting calamities to caring for the needs of living beings. If you have difficulties in life or finances, you can express your wishes to him. Deities do not need to be called gods of wealth to care about these matters.

When discussing the Medicine Buddha Sutra, I used the idea of fulfilling wishes to explain this power of vows and encouraged everyone to learn about the scripture. Drawing close to deities and Buddhas means more than knowing their names. We also need to understand their vows and how they wish to help living beings. Guessing their purpose from a name alone can make an originally broad vow seem too narrow.

However, being able to pray does not mean handing everything over to a deity. Explain clearly what you are asking for and why you need it, while continuing your own efforts in daily life. Receiving support from their vows is meant to give you more strength to face things. Switching to another deity does not remove the work you need to do.

The meaning becomes clearer when discussing Medicine Buddha’s vows concerning food and clothing. The eleventh vow addresses difficulties of hunger, thirst, and having no food. The twelfth concerns lacking clothing and living in hardship. These show me that he cares about more than one illness: he also holds in mind the daily deprivation and suffering of living beings. We can therefore express our needs to him when facing financial difficulties too.