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Tulku Thondup:
Enlighten Up and Heal
Marcia Z. Nelson -- 5/29/00
 | | Tulku Thondup |
Tulku Thondup likes to say he has had three lives--this time around. His first began in a tent in eastern Tibet in 1937. He spent the earliest years of life as a nomadic child, until, at the age of five, he was recognized as a high incarnate lama--"tulku" means "reincarnated master"--of the Dodrupchen Monastery, associated with the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibet's oldest sect. He lived in the monastery until 1956, when he and a group of other monks, trekking more than 1,000 miles, fled the Chinese invasion of Tibet for India. There the Buddhist master lived and taught for 13 years. The third sea change came in 1980, when Thondup emigrated to the United States. A former visiting scholar at Harvard University, he now lives in Cambridge, Mass., where he d s translation and writing on Tibetan Buddhism under the auspices of the Buddhayana Foundation, which promotes Tibetan Buddhist studies.
Measuring the psychological and geographical miles he has traveled, the Tibetan teacher says, "Until I was 18, I never saw anything modern but a wristwatch." With its disruptions and dislocations, Thondup's life journey exemplifies Buddhist teaching on the transformation of suffering into positive and fruitful life experience. "Through all the difficult times," writes Thondup in the introduction to his new book, Boundless Healing: Meditation Exercises to Enlighten the Mind and Heal the Body (Shambhala, Oct.), "the guiding lights of ancient teachings have consistently helped me enjoy the wondrous gift of existence with all its challenges." In its focus on the body and physical wellness, the new book extends the ideas in his previous title, The Healing Power of Mind: Simple Meditation Exercises for Health, Well-Being, and Enlightenment (Shambhala, 1996), which has sold more than 35,000 copies.
The meditation exercises are intended to be universal, relying on images, words, feelings and beliefs that can appeal to a cross-section of readers. He also provides adaptable techniques that use specifically Buddhist imagery. "I hope other traditions, like Christianity, might be able to use the same kinds of methods according to their own beliefs," he says. Thondup is careful to stress that nonspiritual bodies of wisdom and practice, such as medicine and nutrition, also have their roles in healing physical ailments. His workshops on healing meditation have drawn some receptive "establishment" medical doctors; forewords to both Healing Power and his new book are written by Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence, and Boundless Healing is endorsed by bestselling author-physician Andrew Weil. "We should be balanced," Thondup continues. "Using only pills is an extreme. Using only prayers is another extreme. We should use everything, because everything is a blessing."
With an initial print run of 35,000, Shambhala considers Boundless Healing one of its top fall titles. Advertising is planned in national alternative magazines, and a five-city author tour will include New York, Boston, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
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