cover image Health Through Balance: An Introduction to Tibetan Medicine

Health Through Balance: An Introduction to Tibetan Medicine

Yeshi Donden. Snow Lion Publications, $16.95 (252pp) ISBN 978-0-937938-25-6

Donden, the Dalai Lama's personal physician for some 20 years, fled to India during the 1959 Chinese invasion of his homeland and founded the Tibetan Medical Center at Dharmsala. There, and in private practice, he has built a reputation for successfully treating Indians of all ranks with a holistic system of medicine derived from ancient Buddhist principles. Although that system, detailed in these accessible Univ. of Virginia lectures, emphasizes the integrative treatment certain Western physicians are rediscovering, its tenets on the preordained spiritual aspects of disease remain foreign to our culture. Nonetheless, Donden intriguingly fits together parts of the complex puzzle called health. (July)