The Center for Buddhist Studies Weblog

Matthew Kapstein's New Book

Last Wednesday evening (Nov. 8th), rainy weather did not deter curious New Yorkers from going to the Rubin Museum of Art to enjoy a panel discussion on Matthew Kapstein's latest work, The Tibetans (Blackwell Publishing, 2006).

Historian Morris Rossabi (who commissioned the book as part of a diverse series for Blackwell) led a panel that included professors Tsering Shakya (University of British Columbia) and Elliot Sperling (Indiana University).

The panel praised Kapstein's project for its unique value to the burgeoning field of Tibetan Studies. When asked about the impetus for his book, Kapstein responded by saying that he was motivated to do something about the lack of reliable scholarly materials on Tibetan history. In writing this book, Kapstein has therefore not only made an important and much needed contribution to the field, but has also pointed the way for others. Like for instance Lauran Hartley of Columbia University, who took advantage of the subsequent Q&A to elicit Kapstein's recommendations for future research.

So while you wait for Amazon to deliver your copy of The Tibetans, check out the Podcast below to hear for yourself what Kapstein and friends had to say.

Click to listen to Part 1 (mp3 9.7MB) >>
Click to listen to Part 2 (mp3 9.2MB) >>
Click here to purchase The Tibetans >>

The Case for Tibetan Medicine

Indigenous medical traditions, such as those found in Tibet and India, involve theories and practices that may strike conventionally trained physicians as incomprehensible. Should these traditional systems continue to be dismissed as unscientific? Are they worthy of debunking? Or should the Western medical community take them seriously, and study them as alternative and complementary medicine?

These questions are raised by Drs. Joseph Loizzo and Leslie Blackhall in their collaborative article "Traditional Alternatives as Complementary Sciences: The Case of Indo-Tibetan Medicine" in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. They, and a growing number of medical practitioners, have strongly argued the latter. One such practitioner is Dr. Lobsang Rapgay.

Born in Lhasa, Tibet, Dr. Rapgay has led an extraordinary life. Fleeing with his family at the age of four to Dharamsala, India, he was subsequently sent away to boarding school where he excelled and eventually earned admission to Delhi University. After graduation, Rapgay elected to become a Buddhist monk and took ordination vows. It was at this time he first began to study Tibetan medicine. Serving as Deputy Secretary and translator for His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the late 1970s, his interest in medicine led him to graduate studies in clinical psychology. Emigrating to the United States to complete his doctoral training, Rapgay has since been a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, written several books, and is currently Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, and Director of the Behavioral Medicine Clinic and Program, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.

Most recently Dr. Rapgay was a speaker in a lecture series hosted by The Columbia Integrative Medicine Program. His talk entitled, "Going Beyond Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: New ideas in the theory and practice of Classical Mindfulness with Integrative Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for GAD" was presented to a room full of medical practitioners and interested lay people in the Milstein Hospital building in Washington Heights on October 23rd, 2006.

Listen to Dr. Joseph Loizzo's introduction (mp3 39.3 MB) >>

Click here for Dr. Rapgay's lecture
(mp3 30.6 MB) >>

See Dr. Rapgay's slide show (pdf 660 KB) >>

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