Did Buddha heal people?

[smokey]

I have not found any reference to my question in any of the suttas so far. So if anyone knows, please let me know.

[acinteyyo]

Not that I remember, except for healing the spiritual sickness of ignorance...

best wishes, acinteyyo

[smokey]

Thank you Acinteyyo.

[bodom]

The Buddha could not even heal himself, he still had to age, grow old and sick and eventually die. How could he heal anyone else?

[Bankei]

I can't think of any references to the Buddha healing people, but there is one reference I recall of him attending to a sick monk, cleaning him etc and chastising the local monks for not looking after the sick like they would to a family member.

[bodom]

I can't think of any references to the Buddha healing people, but there is one reference I recall of him attending to a sick monk, cleaning him etc and chastising the local monks for not looking after the sick like they would to a family member.

Kucchivikara-vatthu: The Monk with Dysentery
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

"Monks, you have no mother, you have no father, who might tend to you. If you don't tend to one another, who then will tend to you? Whoever would tend to me, should tend to the sick.

[Goofaholix]

His teaching centered around fully experiencing and accepting suffering as a means of finding freedom from it, standing on your own two feet and finding the truth yourself, even if he could do it healing people would be counter productive in terms of his teaching don't you think.

[fig tree]

The commentary says that the Ratana sutta was taught on the occasion of a famine and pestilence in Vesali, that was brought to an end by the Buddha and his monks.

This sutta, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn46/sn46.014.piya.html, describes a monk recovering from an illness while listening to a teaching.

I don't think mundane acts of kindness would conflict with teaching the dhamma at all if done at appropriate times.

Fig Tree

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Yes, at least in the case of Suppiyā.

[pilgrim]

Yes, at least in the case of Suppiyā.

I think there are some errors in the article. I can't make our if Suppiya is the woman who offered her flesh or her husband. Some conflicting sentences:
Suppiya the man
Her husband was Suppiyā
When Suppiya returned and discovered what had happened he was overjoyed
Suppiya the woman
Suppiyā is given as an example of one whose good deeds bore fruit in this very life (Mil.115; cf.291). She was declared by the Buddha foremost among women...
...he asked for Suppiyā. On hearing that she was ill, he desired that she be brought to see him.

[jcsuperstar]

oh and there's a story of a nun who plucks out her eye and then when the buddha knows why it comes back to her

[Dan74]

There have been some cases when the Buddha visited a sick monk and recommended reciting a sutta as a means of healing and also if I recall correctly an occasion when he himself was unwell and he asked a sutta to be recited (both times on the factors leading to enlightenment, I think) and got better. There were also other occasions when the Buddha perceived that the monk was going to die (it was his kamma for his life t end) and advised on the final practices.

There is a book called Healing Buddha which is mostly Mahayana but has some references to suttas (like the above). If I get hold of it, I will supply the references.

[Dhammanucara]

I remember reading a case where a boy who was supposed to die at a certain age, and his parents brought him to a priest who recommended them to go see Buddha. The Buddha also prophesized the same thing, and he called all the monks to chant suttas for the boy. On the final day, the Buddha himself came in to chant for the boy and he lived up to age 120. But i guess this is not exactly the healing you meant, for if I am not mistaken, the cause of the boy's death is because a demoness is chasing to kill him.
And yes, the Bojjhanga Sutta- The sutta of factors of enlightenment was originated when the Buddha chanted that sutta for his disciples (and later his disciples did that to Him as well) and they were all cured from their respective sickness.

With metta,
Dhammanucara