Across the globe, a sneeze is often followed by “God bless you” or some similar variation. But what is a sneeze? A reflex to a stimulus in the nasal cavity? An expulsion of air from the lungs via the mouth and nose? And what does God have to do with it all? Despite these biomedical definitions, religion is inextricably linked to bodily health via our modern language, culture, and medical practices.

This link between religion and medicine can be seen in Tibetan medical paintings. I’d like to introduce an illustration from one of Tibetan medicine’s root texts, the Blue Beryl Treatise by Desi Sangye Gyamtso. It depicts a physician sitting cross-legged, visualizing himself as a mediational deity in order to produce rejuvenation elixirs (3).

From its conception, Tibetan medicine was centered within the larger Buddhist world given that Buddhism has been the dominant religion in Tibet since the 7th century (1). Medicine and healing were deeply spiritual and subject to the influence of deities. Physicians, too, viewed themselves as deities, and medical practices were highly spiritual.

Physicians were not the only ones who saw themselves as spiritual bodies. For most Tibetans, “body” went beyond physical. Their bodies were part of the larger universe, highly porous to its surroundings, and subject to the influences of the heavens and stars. Buddhists were deeply concerned with the soul, so medical treatments targeted both the physical and spiritual aspects of the body. To also keep in line with Buddhist doctrine, the ideal body was pure, meaning that taboo acts like sex, defecation, and smoking went unmentioned (3).

In reality however, sex and drugs were completely ordinary parts of life. This is where traditional Buddhist doctrine and medicine diverged. A distinct medical mentality was emerging. The medical world acknowledged bodies that ate, defectated, and indulged (3). Such “taboo” acts did not preclude bodies from being part of the greater Buddhist universe. Obviously the physician from the Blue Beryl could not have been a perfectly pure being—it would be physically impossible. Still, he could practice Buddhist visualization techniques to become a deity. Buddhist bodies were tied to the physical, everyday demands of ordinary life but able to transcend to a higher spiritual existence. 

Nor did the Tibetan body exist in a vacuum. Political and cultural pressure further strengthened the body’s ties to religion. Under the 5th Dalai Lama’s governance, the Buddhist state greatly sponsored medical scholarship (3). It was politically beneficial for the Tibetan state and the Dalai Lama’s image to support the development of medicine. And for a unified state, it was important that Buddhism and medicine worked in unison to advance Tibetan civilization. Thus, anatomical studies of the body, normally assumed to be an objective exercise, became highly infused with Buddhist tantras. Extending from the example of the physician, who was physical but able to become deified, I introduce another conception of the body where there was even less of a divide between the observable and the spiritual. The accepted perspective of the body established by Tibetan medical scholar Zukharwa maintained that tantric channels were present in the fetus and guided physical development (3). From conception, bodies were shaped by Buddhism. 

What I have described are Tibetan medical theories that blossomed in the early modern period. However, these theories are still central in Tibetan medicine today. Western biomedicine and traditional Tibetan medicine are taught together in Tibetan medical schools (4). Tibetans are faithful adherents to Buddhist medicine. Monks, too, can provide healing treatments. Thus, the body can not be defined in a religious and secular binary. 

Neither can the religious body be defined on a historical and modern axis. The global dominance of Western biomedicine does not render the religious body as antiquated, a remnant of a bygone era. The body resists such temporal divisions. In fact, today’s Tibetan diaspora caused by Chinese occupation has only strengthened the relationship between Buddhism and bodily self (2). In efforts to stay connected to the homeland, Tibetan medicine becomes a cultural unifier.

Western biomedicine has spread to nearly all corners of the world now. It dominates our medical systems and defines our conceptions of the body. Biomedicine provides no religious explanation for why our heart beats nor any spiritual evidence for a “soul”. Yet we say things like “Bless you” or “praying for your recovery”. We invoke God in defense of a fetus’s life. We see organ donation as sacrilegious. We view sexuality as sinful. Our bodies become caught in the middle of opposing religious arguments. Can we really say we are separate from religion? As Tibetan medicine shows, our bodies are more than blood, flesh, and bone. We are religious instruments, political players, and historical evidence. Rejecting the flawed categorizations of our bodies as religious vs. secular, historical vs. modern will allow our discourse and conceptions of our bodies to flourish.

 

Works Cited

1. Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Tibetan Buddhism.” Encyclopedia Britannica, December 17, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tibetan-Buddhism.
2. Cantwell, Cathy. “The Tibetan Medical Tradition, and Tibetan Approaches to Healing in the Contemporary World,” November 24, 2010.
3. Gyatso, Janet. Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet. Columbia University Press, 2015.
4. Yoeli-Tlalim, Ronit. “Tibetan Medical Astrology.” In Astro-Medicine: Astrology and Medicine, East and West. Florence: Sismel, 2008. http://www.sismel.it/tidetails.asp?hdntiid=1073.