Transforming Lives through Tibetan Healing
Flourishing in life requires a healthy mind. The ancient, timely wisdom of Tibetan healing supports self-care practices that can help you to cultivate a healthier mind and body. Tibetan healing teaches you to bring your mental and physical energies into balance thereby reducing suffering and fostering a healthy, happy life.
Since a trip to Lhasa in 1997, Dr. Miriam Cameron (Mim) has been visioning and leading the Tibetan Healing Initiative (THI) at the University of Minnesota's Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing. Mim, Dr. Tenzin Namdul, and colleagues have published books and articles on Tibetan healing, conducted research, and educated more than 1,500 students, many of whom describe the experience as transformative. As a registered nurse, Mim was aware of suffering in the world and had a vision that bringing Tibetan healing to the University of Minnesota would be a powerful way to heal suffering, create happiness, and promote compassionate care for people, communities, and the planet. She and her husband, Michael Ormond, pledged $1,000,000 to establish a Tibetan Healing Professorship, a gift they have made in honor of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The Bakken Center is launching a campaign to expand and sustain the work of THI long into the future.
We hope that you will consider making a gift or pledge to support THI. Many more donations are needed to establish an Endowed Chair in Tibetan Healing and a fund that will generate support for research, scholarships, and additional coursework in Tibetan healing. As Tibetans say, “May THI benefit all beings!”
View a short message from Dr. Cameron about how you can support THI
To explore how a gift of any size can make a profound difference in ensuring that THI thrives at the Bakken Center and benefits community members and our health system, contact Virginia Kaczmarek, Center Development Officer, at [email protected] or 612-624-1121.
Support the Tibetan Healing Initiative by making a Donation
Minnesota, an anchor for Tibetan healing, is home to the second-largest Tibetan community in the United States, second only to New York. The Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing is a longtime advocate and champion of Tibetan healing. Since 2001, the Bakken Center has collaborated with the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota to host visits of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and, together with the Tibetan Medical Institute in Dharamsala, India, has conducted international conferences about Tibetan healing.
About Dr. Tenzin Namdul
Miriam E. Cameron, PhD, MS, MA, RN, Lead Faculty and Founder of the Tibetan Healing Initiative (THI), is retiring from her faculty position to serve as a Bakken Center Senior Fellow. Her long-time colleague, Tenzin Namdul, PhD, Tibetan Medicine Doctor, is now the new THI Director.
Dr. Tenzin Namdul, medical anthropologist and Tibetan medicine doctor, studies the mind-body relationship, focusing on aging and memory through the lens of biocultural and Tibetan medical paradigms. Incorporating translational science, he examines how cultural values and practices shape the ways in which individuals age, die, and care for others who are dying. For his PhD dissertation research, Dr. Namdul examined how Tibetan medical doctors’, Buddhist practitioners', and lay people’s perspectives on death and dying translate into their care for dying individuals and their own dying process. Using ethnography, Dr. Namdul explored how tukdam, a Tibetan Buddhist advanced meditative practice after clinical death, informed and shaped the sociomoral fabric of life and sense of wellbeing at the time of dying among Tibetan refugees in southern India. Dr. Namdul’s current research investigates factors associated with cognitive and physical resilience and how they influence aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and related dementias, among Tibetan Buddhist monks in southern India.