Scientists Studying A Tibetan Monk Who Used Meditation To Cure
His Gangrene using Tsa Lung meditation
By Bill on December 26, 2010 – 11:16am
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http://www.shamanswell.org/shaman/scientists-studying-tibetan-monk-who-used-meditation-cure-his-gangrene
From The Daily Beast:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-25/can-meditation-cure-disease/
A Tibetan lama believes he cured his gangrene-stricken leg by
meditating for a year. Now scientists are studying his brain,
hoping to discover a medical miracle.
Can the power of the mind help humans self-heal? That’s what a
group of scientists are hoping to help determine by studying a
Tibetan lama who believes he cured himself of gangrene through
meditation.
When Tibetan Lama Phakyab Rinpoche immigrated to the United
States in 2003, he was a 37-year-old refugee with diabetes and
Pott’s Disease. His afflictions had gotten so bad that his right
foot and leg had developed gangrene. He was hospitalized and
examined by three different doctors in New York City who all gave
the same treatment recommendation: amputate.
Few people would go against such medical advice, but Rinpoche
(pronounced Rin-Poh-Chey) is no average person. Born in 1966 in
Kham, Tibet, he was ordained at the age of 13 and named the Eighth
Incarnation of the Phakyab Rinpoche by the Dalai Lama himself when
he was working toward the highest level of Tibetan Buddhist study,
the Geshe degree, in 1993. A deeply spiritual man who has devoted
his life to the teachings of Buddhism, it was only natural that he
should reach out to his mentor, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, when
deciding whether to allow his leg to be cut off.
The Dalai Lama’s response was shocking: Do not amputate.
Instead, Lama Rinpoche says, the Tibetan spiritual leader advised
his protégé to utilize his virtuoso skills at Tsa Lung
meditation—heal himself, and then teach others the value of the
ancient tradition. He sent a letter prescribing additional mantras,
such as the Hayagriva, which, at the outset of new endeavors, is
said to clear obstacles and provide protection in their
tradition.
It was a decision that would require an incomprehensible leap of
faith. But Rinpoche says there was no doubt within him. Though
doctors had made it clear he could die, he was not afraid. “As a
Buddhist, what is the worst thing that could happen if I die?” he
told The Daily Beast through a translator. “I would be reborn
again. But to lose a leg in one lifetime because I didn’t try to
save it didn’t make sense.”
And so he began to meditate. Rinpoche says he took no medicine
and his diet was an ordinary one. He would break for meals—when the
lama he was living with came home from work, they would have dinner
and enjoy conversation—but then he would return to meditating
before getting a good night’s sleep at the end of the day. In the
morning, he would awake and return to his routine.
In the early days of this ritual, Lama Rinpoche remembers, the
putrid ooze from his leg ran black; a few months later it turned
cloudy, he said, and bruising started to appear. The swelling
increased and it was more painful. The odor was sickening, he
recalls. But still he felt no doubt.
The progression of the degradation wasn’t simply halted—his leg
was back from the dead.
Then, after nine months, he says something began to happen that
many Americans would consider a miracle. The liquid leaking from
his disabled leg began to run clear. The swelling went down. Soon
he could put some weight on it. At ten months, he could walk again,
first with crutches. A short time later he was down to one crutch,
and then, before even a year had passed, he was walking on his
own.
The progression of the degradation wasn’t simply halted—his leg
was back from the dead. His diabetes and complicating Tuberculosis
are gone today as well.
Now, a group of doctors at New York University have begun
studying Rinpoche—specifically, his brain. Practitioners of Tsa
Lung meditation like Rinpoche visualize a wind (or “lung,” or
“prana”) that is one with the mind, moving down the center channel
of their bodies, clearing blockages and impurities before moving on
to ever-smaller channels.
“This is a cognitive-behavioral practice that present East-West
science suggests may be more effective that any existing strictly
Western medical intervention,” says Dr. William C. Bushell, an
MIT-affiliated researcher in medical anthropology and director of
East-West Research for Tibet House in New York. Gangrene is not
curable by current medical intervention once past a certain point
in its progression, except by amputation.
This month, Dr. Bushell and NYU neuroscientist Zoran Josipovic,
Ph.D. won Lama Rinpoche’s cooperation in undergoing a functional
MRI scan of his brain while he meditated inside the scanner at
NYU’s Center for Brain Imaging. In this first scan the Rinpoche
participated in an ongoing study of the effects of different types
of meditations on anti-correlated networks in the brain that Dr.
Josipovic has been conducting at NYU.
Bushell wrote a scientific analysis of the processes occurring
in the same form of meditation used by Rinpoche in a letter to
Joshua Lederberg, Nobel Prize winner in medicine, some 10 years
ago. Dr. Lederberg was one of the giants of modern science, father
of molecular biology, infectious disease medicine, and modern
genetics. His foundation published the letter, which is actually an
adaptation of a scientific paper, posthumously on his website. It
speaks of the mild to moderate hyperthermia resulting from the
practice, which kills bacteria and aids the body in healing.
“It is not entirely clear from a Western science perspective
what the winds are, but the scientific evidence suggests to me and
others that the meditative process involving winds includes
increased local blood flow, metabolic activity, and oxygenation,’’
Bushell explains. “The original scientific model I developed (which
is largely in a theoretical state) was based on, among other
things, the pioneering work of Thomas K Hunt, MD, on the antibiotic
properties of oxygenation in the blood and surrounding tissues, and
was sponsored by the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma,
Calif. Research shows that mental imagery directed to sites of the
body, both superficial as well as deeper tissues, can with practice
eventually lead to increased local blood flow, metabolic activity,
and oxygenation. Such increases could in principle combat even
powerful bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, which not only can
be the cause of gangrene, but is now often times resistant to
antibiotics.”
Dr. Bushell’s colleague Dr. Josipovic was also very curious
about Rinpoche’s abilities and, in particular, about the way they
may have affected the functional and structural organization of his
brain. The early results of the test are significant at first
glance, he says. They show changes in a wide network of brain areas
mediating attention and awareness. The team will publish their
findings next year.
“Over the past 10 years research into the effects of meditation
on the brain has been gaining unprecedented public and scientific
attention,” Dr. Josipovic explains. “What these studies have shown
is that it is possible to optimize one’s life experience through
cultivation of subtle cognitive states generated through
meditation, and that these are accompanied by changes in the
anatomical structure of the brain, or neuroplasticity. But what
soon became evident was that a great variety of meditation
techniques and states of consciousness they engender, pose a
considerable challenge for understanding them in terms of the
established constructs of Western science.”
Dr. Josipovic says that a major new discovery in the field of
neuroscience, that of spontaneously fluctuating resting-state
networks in the brain, has the potential to shed some light on this
issue. “On a global level, the brain appears to be organized into
two large-scale networks: extrinsic, or the task-positive network,
composed of the brain areas that are active when we are focused on
some task or external environment, and the intrinsic, or ‘default’
network, composed of the areas that are active when we reflect on
ourselves and own experience.”
These networks are usually anti-correlated in their
activity—that is, when one is “up” the other is “down,” he says.
“While this antagonism serves some healthy functions, for example,
of allowing us to focus on a task and refrain from being distracted
by daydreaming or irrelevant concerns, we suspect it may also
underlie some unhealthy aspects of our everyday experience, such as
excessive fragmentation between self/other and internal/external—in
other words the ‘dualistic mind’ that many contemplative traditions
see as the root of our suffering.’’
Those who wish to begin a Tsa Lung practice, which is an
advanced but achievable discipline, are encouraged to seek a
teacher.
Rinpoche himself teaches often across the country, and is adding
a website www.awakeningmindfoundation.org and Skype to his teaching
sessions to reach more people around the world. This year he will
lead a special New Year gathering in Tubac, Arizona sponsored by
Pocket Sanctuary and the Helen Graham Park Foundation.
MaryAnn Zitka, a medical researcher and senior student of
Phakyab Rinpoche explains that the word Rinpoche is a Tibetan
Buddhist honorific title that literally means the precious one.
“This is a very appropriate title to me,” she says. “It’s not often
that you meet someone so committed to helping others. Rinpoche
freely teaches his wisdom traditions to all who wish to learn, and
his only request is to practice.”
Maureen Seaberg is a NYC-based journalist whose work has
apTasting the Universe, will be out in March 2011 from New Page
Books.peared in the New York Times, the Daily News, Irish America,
ESPN the magazine and on PBS and MSNBC. She won a scholarship to
the inaugural Norman Mailer Writers Colony in 2009. She is also a
synesthete and synesthesia researcher who is on the organizing
committee of the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference for
the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona,
Tucson. Her first book, about synesthesia, titled
Tasting the Universe, will be out in March 2011 from New Page
Books.
http://indiglit.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/scientists-studying-a-tibetan-monk-who-used-meditation-to-cure-his-gangrene-using-tsa-lung-meditation/