Medicine Buddha: Raising The Banner of Victory – Ep. 170

In this two part podcast Professor Thurman discusses the Galenic, Chinese, and Ayurvedic methodologies found in Traditional Himalayan Medicine or Sowa Rigpa’s “Science of Healing” detailing the powerful diagnostic tools of urine analysis, pulse reading and dialog between doctor and patient which have proven to prevent illness, cure illness, extend life, and cultivate happiness.

Using the visual medical thankgas depicting the “Four Medical Tantras” (Tib. རྒྱུད་བཞི་ “gyüd zhi”): the Root Tantra, the Explanatory Tantra, the Oral Transmission Tantra, and the Final Tantra) Robert A.F. Thurman begins this week’s podcast with stories from his early days studying with Yeshe Dhondon, the Dalai Lama‘s personal physician and founder of the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute (Men–Tsee–Khang) in Dharamshala, India, giving an explanation of the Tibetan phrase “Raising the Banner of Victory on the Mountain Peak” used by Sowa Rigpa practitioners before elaborating the framework and concepts found in the analytic Buddhist sciences preserved in Tibet. This Tibetan Medicine 101 podcast on Traditional Himalayan Medicine’s Subtle Anatomy system includes in-depth explanations of: the Five Internal Elements (Space, Wind, Fire, Water and Earth), The Five External Elements (Wood, Fire, Metal, Water and Earth), The Three Humors (Wind/Loong, Bile/ Tripa and Phlegm/ Beken), The Five Chakras,The Three Channels and overall cosmology used in Sowa Rigpa and in Buddhist Philosophy.

To view images of the Blue Beryl Medical paintings please visit: www.himalayanart.org.

“Tibetan Medicine 101 : Medicine Buddha : Raising The Banner of Victory on The Mountain Peak – Ep. 170′′ of the Bob Thurman Podcast is an excerpt from the Force For Good Class “Medicine Buddha: Buddhist Inner Sciences” held at Tibet House US in New York City on November 29, 2017.

“Materialist science is imprisoned by a philosophical mix-up. Scientists need to set themselves free by learning from the great scientists of India and Tibet how to own up to the fact that they are beings who have minds, spirits, and even souls- not as some sort of mystical entities, but as rationally explorable and experimentally understandable processes. These processes are extremely subtle, and to learn about them, understand them, and so master them requires a new kind of advanced educational and training of one’s own emotional, intellectual, and mental abilities.”

Robert A.F. Thurman Tibetan Book of Health: Sowa Rigpa, The Science of Healing