Meditation Saved My Life: A Tibetan Lama and the Healing Power of the Mind

In 2003, Tibetan lama Phakyab Rinpoche was admitted to the emergency clinic of the Program for Survivors of Torture at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital. After a dramatic escape from imprisonment in China, at the hands of authorities bent on uprooting Tibet’s traditional religion and culture, his ordeal had left him with life-threatening injuries, including gangrene of the right ankle. American doctors gave Rinpoche a shocking choice: accept leg amputation or risk a slow, painful death.

An inner voice, however, prompted him to try an unconventional cure: meditation. He began an intensive spiritual routine that included thousands of hours of meditation over three years in a small Brooklyn studio. Against all scientific logic, his injuries gradually healed. In this vivid, passionate account, Sofia Stril-Rever relates the extraordinary experiences of Phakyab Rinpoche, who reveals the secret of the great healing powers that lie dormant within each of us.