The legendary medicine of ancient Tibet, a mountainous country of snow, has always been considered miraculous and mystical to the outside world. It is a traditional system of medicine that has been practiced for over 2500 years and is still practiced today. The basic theory of Tibetan medicine is to keep in balance .

Tibetan medicine is very different from western medicine, which you can find by one of their famous Metaphors: "Just as a bird has the freedom of the skies, it cannot fly above the sky. In Tibetan medicine, we always treat the cause or the root of the disease and illness and not the symptoms." In Tibetan medicine there is the following example -without treating the root or the cause of the disease it is as having a poisonous tree and just cutting off the leaves and branches without pulling it up from it's roots. If you just cut the leaves and branches it will still continue to grow. Similarly, if a person is suffering from a chronic disease and expects a quick solution, then this will not be possible. He will have to be patient and take the medicine for a long period of time before its positive results will show.

All of the Tibetan medicine collected over thousands of years was compiled in the manual on Tibetan medicine - the treatise "Chzud-shi". In that book, the Buddhist sage Vimalakirti mused that, "All sentient beings are ill" and "the inevitability of suffering and illness is a reflection of the fact that we are born." It believes that we "take birth" because we are ignorant of the true nature of reality and that it is this ignorance that is the cause of all suffering and disorder. It remarks that "the root [of illness] is beginningless ignorance" and that "ignorance is with us like our own shadow . . . even if we think that we are in very good health, actually we have had the basic cause of illness since beginningless time"

Tibetans believe that our false perceptions of the world and its projections actually change the world, which is fundamentally neutral. Moreover, people become attached to ego-centered views that "contain the seeds of profound misunderstanding of what it means to have Being in this world" (Walsh-Frank, p. 8). Consequently, because "all phenomena are mere reflections and designation of the mind" (Thonduk, p.193), and the mind is driven by delusional thinking, the samsara (our perception of the phenomenal world) is filled with suffering.

In the Tibetan medical tradition, there is no such notion as "disease"; the whole organism is considered sick and is looked upon as one unit. So, first of all, a Tibetan healer tries to balance and regulate the whole organism and normalize its inner homeostasis, that is, to restore its nervous system.

The first examination of a patient is a long ritual. A doctor and his patient drink tea first and talk. The patient speaks about himself, his occupation, and his dreams. Only after this conversation does the doctor, or lama, start his examination. "Examine a disease as if you were on the track of a tiger" - is one of the postulates of Tibetan medicine. A lama studies attentively the "windows" of the body: eyes, ears, tongue, and nails. He pays attention to the smell and the color of the skin; he listens to and feels his patient. Then he starts the second stage of examination - pulse diagnostics. Tibetan doctors distinguish about 300 kinds of pulse. For the Tibetan doctor, all internal organs influence each other, and mostly through the blood. That is why a radial artery and its pulse are considered the center of life. Lamas make judgements about the work of this or that organ, about current and future diseases, and about longevity according to the frequency, rhythm, height, length, form, pauses, and vibration of the pulse wave. At the same time they take into account the influence of the 5 mukhabuda (mukhabuda are the natural elements: fire, air, water, earth, and wood), which are corrected with the seasons of the year.

In addition to being a relatively secular approach to health and well-being, involving medicines and dietary and practical suggestions, the Tibetan healing tradition is rich in Buddhist ritual and symbolism. Furthermore, ritual and symbol contain multiple levels of meaning that all exist collaterally in a spiritual approach to healing. Iconography, music, chants, mantra, symbolic objects such as prayer wheels and prayer flags, mandalas (geometric paintings or drawings) and visualizations are utilized in modest to elaborate rituals to focus and objectify the source of healing power. Tibetan symbols and rituals, whose ultimate purpose is to mobilize the bodhicitta (aspiration to attain enlightenment in order to free all sentient beings from suffering) in the individual, generate not only cognitive considerations but also encompass subjective meaning for the spiritual, emotional and sensual spheres.

The concept of wellbeing takes into account the full dynamics of mind, body and spirit to achieve an effective and comprehensive healing strategy. The unique healing science of Tibetan medicine is immersed in Buddhist tradition, which differs from non-Buddhist medicine in that it utilizes three types of therapeutic intervention: medicinal entities, the power of mantra (a creative, repetitive sound) and the power of meditative stabilization. In doing so, the Tibetan healing traditions transport us into a strange world of interconnectedness between macrocosmic principles and their microcosmic manifestations. Harmony and balance between the cosmic macrocosm and the human microcosm is believed to be essential for health and wellbeing. This is true not only in the sense that balance is required for health, but also in the somewhat deeper sense that such balance is the essence of health. Balance among the physical, psychological and spiritual elements of human existence is health.

(From China.com)