The Spiritual Heart of Tibetan Medicine
Words from Sogyal Rinpoche, Author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. The first International Congress for Tibetan Medicine took place in Washington DC in November 1998. A unique gathering, opened by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, it brought together Tibetan physicians, lamas, doctors and medical specialists from many countries. Sogyal Rinpoche was invited to address the conference on its opening morning.
Your Holiness, eminent doctors and scholars, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour for me to address you today at this International Congress of Tibetan Medicine. What I shall endeavour to do is to explore, very briefly and with my limited understanding, the spiritual and mental dimensions of healing within the Buddhist tradition of Tibet. I will speak from my own experience of what I know to be effective in the West. Of course, whatever I do understand is only thanks to the infinite kindness of my masters, and especially Jamyang Khyentse Chkyi Lodr, Dudjom Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who embody so perfectly the wisdom and compassion of the Buddhist path.IntroductionThe ancient science of Tibetan medicine is rooted in the teachings of Buddha, and the essence of these teachings is the central importance of the mind. The Buddha said:
Commit not a single unwholesome action, Cultivate a wealth of virtue, To tame this mind of ours. This is the teaching of the Buddha.
He also said:
“We are what we think All that we are Arises with our thoughts.With our thoughts we make the world. Speak or act with a pure mind. And happiness will follow you.”
The mind is both the source of happiness and the root of suffering; at the same time as it possesses an extraordinary capacity for healing, it also plays its part in making us ill.
But how exactly can the mind provoke physical illness? The Four Tantras, the authoritative sources for Tibetan Medicine, are quite explicit:Here is an explanation of the general cause of all illness. There is but one single cause… and this is said to be ignorance due to not understanding the meaning of selflessness…”Now for the specific causes: from ignorance arise the three poisons of attachment, hatred and closed-mindedness, and from these, as a result, are produced disorders of wind, bile and phlegm.The basic source of sickness is diagnosed as ignorance, in other words attributing a false sense of a lasting and independent self to ourselves and the phenomena around us. This, the Tibetan medical tradition tells us, arouses:
For years now around the world there has been a growing understanding of the correlation of mind and body, and of the link between ill-health and the way we cope with stress and our emotions. In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman writes:People who experienced chronic anxiety, long periods of sadness and pessimism, unremitting tension or incessant hostility, relentless cynicism or suspiciousness, were found to have double the risk of disease….
See full story on rigpa.org