# The Tibetan doctor's pulse diagnosis

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-tibetan-doctor-pulses
- Themes: healing, traditional medicine, body
- Life situations: health worries, heart disease

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

As Ajahn Brahm recalls from a Buddhist magazine, a newly arrived Tibetan refugee doctor with no English is tested in a US hospital; reading a patient's pulses, he says there's a blockage around the heart — matching the scans showing blocked arteries awaiting bypass.

## The story, as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

And I remember reading an article in a was a Buddhist magazine some years ago where they had a traditional Tibetan doctor who had only just came over from Tibet as a refugee, but he was one of the famous doctors in Tibet. He couldn't speak any English or that he could even read. And they took him into a hospital in the US just to test him out. They showed him patients and asked him to diagnose what was wrong with them. And I think he tested the pulses like in Chinese medicine. I think I don't is it nine pulses? I think I forget how many years is now. He checked all these pulses and then straight away he said that guy's got a blockage around his heart region. He had congested arteries around his heart. Was going to do a bypass soon. That was one example. I remember this guy got it straight away. But the way he interpreted it was like blockages in energy flows. The doctors in the US using the scan showed there was a blocked arteries close to his heart. Exactly the same.

## Teaching point

Illness can be understood as blocked energy flow; relaxation releases blockages.

## Reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

Ajahn Brahm remembers reading of a Tibetan doctor with no English who felt a patient's pulses and found the same heart blockage the scans had shown. Take the details lightly; the point is about relaxing. Keep your doctor, and get out of your body's way too. You can't force healing. Rest and let go.

## Source

- [Building a House of Peace | Ajahn Brahm | 13-04-2007](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxK7iqG2XQA) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 26:55 to 28:13: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxK7iqG2XQA&t=1615s