Mental Health & Sowa Rigpa in the times of Covid-19
Panel discussion with Dr. Nida Chenagtsang, Dr. Tenzin Yangdon, Jens Tönneman, M.D. Caroline Van Damme, M.D., and Anastazia Holecko, M.D.
Moderated by Dr. Ben Joffe
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About our Panelists:
Dr. Nida Chenagtsang is a traditional Tibetan physician and lineage holder of the Yuthok Nyingthig, the unique Vajrayana Buddhist spiritual healing tradition of Tibetan Medicine. He has published several books and articles on Tibetan medicine, meditation, and yoga, and his extensive research and revival of ancient Tibetan healing methods has earned him great acclaim in both East and West. Dr. Nida is the Co-Founder and Medical Director of Sorig Khang International: Foundation for Traditional Tibetan Medicine (sorig.net) with branch centers in over forty countries worldwide; Co-Founder of the International Ngakmang Institute established to preserve and maintain the Rebkong non-monastic yogi/ini culture within modern Tibetan society; and Co-Founder and Medical and Spiritual Director of the Sorig Institute (www.soriginstute.org) and Pure Land Farms (www.purelandfarms.org), Centers for Tibetan Medicine, Meditation and Rejuvenation in Los Angeles, California.
Dr. Tenzin Yangdon, founder of White Tara Tibetan Healing, graduated in 1992 from Men-Tsee-Khang Tibetan Medical College in Dharamsala, India, where she studied traditional Tibetan herbalism, acupuncture, and holistic healing modalities. She practiced for many years under Dr. Kunga Gyurme, the personal physician of HH the Dalai Lama. She travels throughout Europe and the United States treating patients and teaching classes on Tibetan Medicine.
Jens Tönnemann, M.D. is a Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist with a long-term focus on “Mental Health Care in Sowa Rigpa“, who is working on different levels that are all connected and interacting.
In the center is the daily personal encounter and work as a doctor with patients and their families either downtown in the city clinic or in the simplicity of the mountain clinic in the Alps nearby Innsbruck/Austria. On the level of “living interconnection“ a constant presence with openness is required to coordinate the organization and development of the only annual International Congress on Sowa Rigpa that moves from one SKẎ country to another around the globe. “Living complexity in simplicity“ is inspired through the most important root connection to his teachers and stable lineages.
Inspired through Yuthok´s vision “for the benefit of all sentient beings“ Dr. Jens Tönnemann dedicates his work and life in the field of Sowa Rigpa to nurture the constant process of building and crossing bridges between time-tested and modern medicine.
Caroline Van Damme, M.D. is an adult psychiatrist. She works at the "Brussels Night Hospital", specialized in the psychosocial rehabilitation of people suffering from chronic psychotic disorders. Besides a night hospital, the institution includes a day hospital, sheltered living, as well as assertive community treatment. Caroline has always had a genuine interest in the human mind. She started her university education at Brandeis University in the United States where she studied neuroscience. Along the way she switched to a medical education at the "Katholieke Universiteit Leuven", Belgium, where she received her medical degree in 2003 and her psychiatry degree five years later. Although she was raised in a Catholic environment, she has been interested in Buddhism since adolescence. Meanwhile she has become a Buddhist practitioner. She believes Buddhism provides an interesting perspective on mental disease and how to approach people suffering from it. Caroline is also co-founder of psy4climate, which tries to raise awareness about the relationship between mental health and ecology.
Anastazja Holečko, M.D. Enthusiastic about finding the system that combines both medical and spiritual knowledge, she decided to study both Western and Tibetan medicine in parallel. After graduation as MD from the Medical University in Lodz, Poland, she moved to Prague, Czech Republic, where she lives and practices the Healing Science until today. She has founded SKY branches in Poland (2011) and Czech Republic (2012). The author of various articles on Tibetan medicine, she has been the "mother" and the main editor of the Journal of Traditional Tibetan Medicine - now Sowa Rigpa Journal since 2007. Since 2011 Anastazja has been teaching different aspects of Sowa Rigpa, and is especially passionate about Diet, Lifestyle, and Chulen, Tibetan rejuvenation techniques.
To learn more about our Tibetan Medicine School and our new Sowa Rigpa Counseler training, please visit the Sowa Rigpa Institute