Wind and Breath in Tibetan Thought: the Confluence of Tantra and Ayurveda, Geoffrey Samuel

Breath and wind concepts are widespread in Asia, and the Tibetans inherited both Yogic and Tantric prāṇa and Ayurvedic vāta, both translated into Tibetan as rlung. This proved a constructive confluence for Tibetan Tantra and Tibetan medicine, and may be suggestive too for modern Western understandings of consciousness and its physiological correlates. Contents: 0:00 Introduction 4:00 Prana in India and Tibet 13:20 Ayurvedic Vata in India and Tibet 17:22 The Tibetan medical tradition 21:24 The conflation of prana and vata 27:45 Concluding remarks; the mutual interpenetration of ideas in Tibetan Buddhism and contemporary science See additional resources at http://www.jivaka.net/buddhism-and-br... . Geoffrey Samuel is Professor in the School of Religious and Theological Studies at Cardiff University. He has researched and published extensively in the areas of religion in Tibetan societies, the historical development and contemporary practice of technologies of consciousness, the relationship between consciousness, body and materiality, particularly in relation to healing, as well as the history of meditation, yoga and tantra in India and Tibet and other Asian medical, health and yogic practices. Professor Samuel also has interests in Religion and modernity, including Buddhism in contemporary societies, gender, sexuality and masculinity in Asian cultures and also Shamanism and nature religions.