I’m going to the Land of Medicine Buddha today. Doesn’t that sound restful?

It’s a wooded retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains and will be a peaceful writing environment for a few days. A friend who also writes has the room next door. We’ll write, talk about our work and stroll through the retreat’s redwood forest.

The property is green, shaded, lovely, with a meandering path called the Eight Verses Pilgrimage Trail. Verses are posted every so often along the trail and above inviting teakwood benches where we can sit and contemplate what we’ve read.

Two meals will be provided at an additional cost: vegetarian and organic. Substances are forbidden, as is killing of any kind, including of bugs. The accommodations are spare, but not way too rustic.

The reading and writing part of this two-night retreat is appealing. But I’m hoping that the Medicine Buddha does even more for me.

Medicine Buddha is an enlightened being who has unbiased compassion for all living beings. He protects them form physical and mental sickness and other dangers and obstacles, and helps them to eradicate the three poisons–attachment, hatred and ignorance–which are the source of all sickness and danger. He is a Buddha Doctor. -Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

No, I’m not sick. And I’ve come a long way with a few troubling personal issues. But still, there’s always something that nags at each of us, that troubles us, and I’m no different.

How wonderful to sit in a gentle place of healing for a little while. A place of colorful prayer flags and spinning prayer wheels. Where silence heals and in that healing, opens hearts.