Tibetan Medicine

Introduction  This seminar is about how the five Buddha-family traits create our view of the universe. This is a topic that deals with what we call in Buddhism “Buddha-nature.” The word “family” in “Buddha-family” is actually the Sanskrit word for caste, a social system that...

The Creation of Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia was created as a separate entity from the rest of Mongolia by the Manchus, because the Mongols in this region submitted to the Manchus in the mid-seventeenth century, about 60 years before Khalkha, or what later became known as...

Tibetan language and culture spread and interacted with many other civilizations. The Tibetan traditions have evolved over the centuries, and this process of evolution and growth must continue.

Examine the contents of the first two chapters as they appear in “The Abridged Kalachakra Tantra” and its commentary, “Stainless Light.” The first concerns the external cycles of time, the second the internal cycles.

Treatment is made by suggesting patients modify their diet and behavior, and then prescribing herbal medicines, as well as sometimes acupuncture, moxabustion or other external proce­dures.

An overview of the history of Tibetan medicine from the pre-Buddhist Bon tradition, the Indian Buddhist medical tradi­tion introduced by Vairochana, to the spread of the Tibetan medical system to the Mongol regions.

Diagnosis of disease in Tibetan medicine is done by a three-fold process: visual examination, pulse and urine analysis, and questioning the patient about symptoms.

Overview of the three waves of Buddhism reaching Mongolia from Central Asia and then Tibet, the subsequent exploitation of Buddhism by the Manchus, its suppression under the communist regime and the initial efforts at its revival.

A Q&A session between Dr. Berzin and his students about the principles and usages of Tibetan medicine.

Tibetan medicine is based on the principle that overcoming disease requires balancing not only the humors and elements in the body and one’s diet and behavior, but also gaining balance on the emotional/mental level.