The Medicine Buddha (A Himalayan Journey)

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A search for medical teachings from Tibetan and Ayurvedic doctors, led David Crow, acupuncturist and herbalist to Nepal, where he used his newfound knowledge to treat a diverse clientele. A colorful and captivating story of adventure, exploration and self-discovery, In Search of the Medicine Buddha, describes Crow's journey into the wonders of Himalayan herbology and spirituality. Appealing to all those interested in exotic places and genuine mystical encounters, this decade-long search for authentic medical wisdom evokes the beauty and wonder of a faraway land and reveals a hidden world of powerful and important healing knowledge.

David CROW,. L.Ac., is a licensed acupuncturist, medical herbalist. and practitioner of traditional Asian healing arts. The Founder of the Center for Sattvic Medicine and the Sudarshan Herb Company, he lives in Los Angeles.

The first time I flew out of Kathmandu was on the new moon of February 1988. I had just completed a year of study with Dr. Ngawang Choptl, a Tibetan monk-physician. Over the next ten years, I would de-part from this Himalayan valley five more times, each time uncertain if I would ever return.

On that afternoon, amid the colorful festivities of Losar, the Tibetan New Year, I exchanged gifts with my old teacher, expressed my heartfelt gratitude for the wonderful instructions and kindness he had given me, then sadly said farewell. I left his monastery with white blessing scarves draped around my neck and bags of fragrant herbal medicines in my pack, and made my way one last time to the forested hilltops of nearby Pashupatinath.

Baby monkeys hanging from their mothers bellies shrieked as I approached the upper terraces overlooking the Shiva temples and ghats along the banks of the Bagman River. Between two burning pyres and surrounded by a lamenting family, a corpse was being prepared for cremation. Rain began to fall, the drops illumined by bright sunlight streaming through the jungle foliage. I looked back across the valley toward Boudhanath, the village that had been my home, and the white dome of its sacred Stupa. Strains of hypnotic music accompanied the rhythmic work of peasant women in the fields below as the Stupa sparkled in the distance.

From its golden spire rose a perfect rainbow, arching across the yellow green paddies like a ray from the eye of a Buddha, a bridge of memories, and a beacon of hope to guide me through the uncertainty ahead. Here, in this vision before me, was the essence of Nepal: a magical land steeped in spiritual history, a medieval serfdom of toil and hard-ship, a world of timeless cultural treasures, and a place of disease and impermanence. This moment was the fruition of the prayer that had brought me to Kathmandu in search of classical Himalayan medicines and the teachings of Dharma, universal truth. I picked up my pack, heavy with woodblock-printed texts of ancient herbal formulas, manuscripts of alchemical secrets, silk pouches bulging with botanical remedies, and notebooks filled with my teacher's wisdom, and turned my mind toward America.

I had had modest but unusual professional ambitions when I applied to the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in San Fran. cisco in 1980, where the door to Asian healing arts was beginning to open in the West. My interest was to follow in the footsteps of the "barefoot doctors" of China, the auxiliary health workers who provide medical care to the rural poor, using primarily acupuncture needles, moxibustion, and locally available herbs.

My desire was to be able to make a living by sharing knowledge and giving comfort, using simple yet effective methods handed down through the ages. Without knowing it at the time, I was about to follow many of the same stages of training as physicians in the past, who studied the arts and sciences of massage. acupuncture, herbal formulation, dietary therapies, purification practices, and meditational healing. Walking through the door of traditional Chinese medicine, I en-countered the world of Taoist thought, where mysteriously flowing chi moves in tides and cyclic currents through the body's meridians and acupuncture points. I watched as silver and gold needles, skillfully en-livened by the master's hand, vibrated vitality back into the weary. I breathed the wispy smoke of pungent glowing on the needle's handle as the soothing warmth of fire and metal in conjunction spread through invisible channels blocked by cold. I saw the play of the sea-sons across the landscape of the body, the influences of the stars in the blood, the pull of the moon in the core of the womb. I heard tales of for hermits practicing inner alchemy by guiding their breath in contemplative absorption, sustained by elixirs of longevity as they purified their consciousness.

I found clay pots simmering with families secret brews, flashing neon streets lined with windows displaying ginseng and deer horn, old men reading pulses in humble quarters, and apprentices dispensing herbs from distant mountains out of old wooden cabinets. It was during this period of study in San Francisco that I met Kalu Rinpoche, an extraordinary mystic from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Before taking binh, he had appeared to his future parents in dreams, asking to visit their home, and when he was born, it was said, the sky filled with rainbows. An unusually wise and intelligent child, Kalu was regarded by the lamas of Kham as an incarnation of a highly developed being. He entered monastic life at a young age, and-with a photo-graphic memory, impeccable understanding, and exemplary discipline-excelled in his scholarly studies. His guru named him Karma Rangjung Kunchab, Self-Arisen and All-Pervading.

Completing monastic training in his mid-twenties, Kalu departed into the wilderness-of eastern Tibet. Following the lineage of Milarepa, the great "cotton.clad" yogi, Kalu lived a most austere and ascetic life. Travelers would find him dwelling under rock ledges open to the winter winds, or in cave hermitages. wearing Only a thin cloth. Deep in the snow mountains he practiced the highest yogas and gained mastery over the currents of mind and body. He meditated continuously for fifteen years, nourished by the inner warmth of bliss. absorbed in wakeful dreaming, radiant with immense compassion for all sentient beings. When Kahl was about the age of forty, the monks implored him to re-turn to the monastery for their benefit.

He became renowned through out the world as a master of contemplative practice who knew the true nature of reality. I wept when I met Kalu Rinpoche, so powerfully did his presence arouse hope for myself and humanity. Already old, he calmly presided over an evening of Tibetan ritual, gracefully draped with golden saffron robes, voice resonant with a lifetime of prayers. He exuded warmth, and at the end of the ceremony I saw his extraordinary head glowing with light.

Was it a coincidence that unseasonable showers fell that night and rainbows filled the San Francisco sky the next day` Then he was gone, back to his monastery in the misty mountains of Darjeeling. During his absence I graduated from acupuncture college and staved my medical practice. He returned four years later to conduct ceremonies, give teachings, and initiate his advanced students into the traditional three-year meditation retreat. One day I sat with Rinpoche (Precious One) and told him about my interest in studying libetaii medicine. He listened patiently, then pointed out that although it would be good to go to Asia to learn these things, it was more important to understand the Dharma, the compassionate truth that transforms any kind of medicine into spiritual practice. Synchronistic events happen around those whose minds are wish-fulfilling gems. In response to Kalu's omniscient aura, I found myself transported from the mandalas invoked during ceremonies, to the mandalic neighborhood around the Stupa of Boudhanath. There, in a circular village under skies resonating with mantras, f found the first of my teachers, Ngawang Chopel.

Over the coming years I would meet nine more distinguished physicians of Kathmandu, whose training and experience encompassed a vast range of Ayurvedic and Tibetan medical knowledge. Many others would share their teachings with me as well, including monks, nuns, Rinpochcs, alchemists, herbal technicians, temple-dwelling swamis, the King's astrologer, and silent chillum-smoking saddhus. Kathmandu itself was the greatest of teachers. Endless monsoon rains cultivate patience. hungry beggars and homeless children stir the heart in ways that eloquent discourses on the Dharma cannot; the horrific pollution of the streets demands the deepest equanimity; and nothing awakens a doctor's compassionate empathy for the suffering of patients more than being afflicted with illness himself. Soon after my mentorship commenced, Dr. Chopel generously blessed me with his knowledge of Sange Menla, the Medicine Buddha. The emanation of Buddha as a celestial physician and mythical source of Tibetan medical lineages, Sange Menla resides in a pure realm, surrounded by wondrous geometric gardens of botanical wealth, curative animals, and wish-fulfilling gems.

Of all the Dharrnic gifts I was to receive and contemplate in my studies and travels, none has influenced me more than this vision of Sange Menla, representing an ecologically renewed world purified by love and governed by enlightened wisdom. Through my teacher's kindness and my own contemplative efforts, I came to see that, although shrouded with the veil of spiritual darkness, our world is in essence the mandala of Sudarshan, Beautiful to Behold, the kingdom of the lapis-bodied universal healer. When one contemplates deities, patterns ripple through consciousness, weaving chronological time and linear space into a dance of archetypes. As one trains the mind to see the purity of the world, the deities realms merge into waking perceptions, creating a subtle spell. This is especially true in the Himalayas, where sacred places are steeped in the accumulated psychic power of holy people performing such practices though the ages.

**Contents and Sample Pages**