Birth, Life and Death

Birth, Life and Death meets two needs, often considered separate or mutually contradictory: on the one hand the natural tendency of a human being to seek health and well-being in everyday life and, on the other, the ever greater yearning for an authentic and unconditioned spiritual knowledge, which gives us the means to deal with the problems of birth, life and death in a profound though concrete way.

The book has four major sections. In the first part, Introduction of Tibetan Medicine, the author enlarges on the fundamental characteristics of the human organism, based on the nature of its various physical components and their interactions, as seen by this ancient medical tradition.

The Birth section offers the particular knowledge of the Tibetan medical tradition on such topics as the function of the elements in fetal development, the secondary causes which determine the sex of the child, and the seven possible constitutions of the child and what portends for his or her future health needs.

In the Life section the author explains how each individual by cultivating a profound understanding of the three doors of the human organism - body, voice or energy, and mind - can realize physical, mental and spiritual health. The author makes clear that maintaining a constant flow of presence and awareness in each moment, an indipensable condition for practitioners on any spiritual path, enables us to relax our tensions, and live serenely in good health.

The last section, Death, initially considers the nature of death and our attitudes towards it. What follows, however, is a kind of guide on the passage through the four "intermediate states" we will experience after leaving our human body. For Each of these states the author outlines the essential instruction that enables a person to attain liberation at that time. Finally, the profound knowledge contained in the Bardo Thodrol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, is explained.