Pollution, and Amchi-la

My brain hurts. Didn't sleep well this morning after the usual 3 AM jolt, because of the freezing cold, and if it weren't for the Winter Silk and fleece and lots of hot tea I would be an icicle. The air pollution and cold are a killer combination, and my sinuses are not pleased. Anyway, after Tibetan class I wandered around the stupa for a while and picked up a little book on mandalas. The store also had the film on the Karmapa, Living Buddha: The True Story, that I've been searching for (in vain until now) since last April--even RMA didn't have it. Actually, these kinds of films on various high lamas and rinpoches are all over the place here. They're impossible to find in the States and I may stock up while I'm here.

This afternoon was my first real lesson with the Amchi. We sat and read and discussed the history of Tibetan medicine for two hours that felt like two days--hence the brain pain. He knows so much! It's overwhelming. I've spent the evening in kind of a daze, mostly from the mental exertion. There's all kinds of common sense to concepts and legends that would be considered nonsense by most Western doctors. Truthfully, some of what I learned today seemed relevant to an explanation of the very origins of the world, not just Tibetan medicine.

However, it wasn't all the kind of deep concepts that I find so attractive...there was a lot of talking about the various kings and physicians who composed and compiled and commented on the four basic texts of the Tibetan medical tradition (the Root Tantra, the Explanatory Tantra, the Oral Transmission Tantra, and the Last Tantra...and then the concluding and analytical chapters), which are comprised of a total of 156 chapters. We covered so much ground that I'm finding it impossible to figure out what to write here, either as a sample or a summary. Disregarding the origin of the tradition in Tibetan history, since that's quite a specific study and probably not interesting to anyone but a student, I suppose I'll mention some little things.

The first international medical conference held in Tibet was at the Samye monastery (which happens to be the location of Mikel Dunham's book of photographs). The conference included scholars of medicine from India, China, Greece, Turkistan, etc. and the Tibetan science of healing took the essence of each of these and combined them in the formation of its own unique system. That in itself is very interesting, as it contains one of those paradoxes that inevitably mean something true is at hand: the Tibetan medical tradition is both particular to Tibet and definitely unique and internally developed; however, it was the first to synthesize the knowledge of the most learned physicians in neighboring nations--which clearly include giants of not only the ancient but also the modern world.

Amchi began to teach me about hot and cold disorders, and the types of principal energies, but these were sidenotes to the historical narrative, so I won't mention them here yet. Still, it's worth mentioning now that there are three traditional materials used for Tibetan medicine: mineral material, plant material, and animal material.

For a few centuries already, animal material has not been used, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama's emphasis on ecological preservation has cemented this. (In fact, Amchi was quite passionate about H.H.'s sole merit in keeping the medical tradition alive, particularly through popularity in the West, and from where I stand this is a perfectly true view of things...as opposed to the stance of some Tibetan doctors, who believe their individual efforts of lecturing and giving seminars in Europe and the States are responsible for the surge of continental interest in Tibetan medicine.) However, the proportions are not equal between the two types of material that are still used; about 99% of remedies are entirely herbal, and the 1% mineral material is used for precious pills. "Precious pills" have heavy metals like mercury in them, which sounds frightening, but there are very careful and meticulous methods of detoxifying these metals for use in medicine in the Tibetan system.

The electricity in Boudha just went out. I don't remember whether I mentioned before that the government has recently instituted power cuts, meaning no electricity six hours a day, at arbitrary times, Monday through Saturday. It's romantic to study by candlelight, but the novelty is wearing off and my eyes don't appreciate it much either.

The weekend is approaching, and I will be glad to rest and relax for a couple of days...but I have a good 20 hours until then, so it's bedtime now.