[.ca] The Tibetan Art of Living: Wise Body, Mind, Life (ISBN 0743233166)

From Amazon.com:
The Tibetan Art of Living is a comprehensive guide to mind and body healing. Christopher Hansard, who says he has trained in Tibetan Bon medicine since the age of 4, provides a guide for putting the mind and body in balance by bringing thoughts and emotions into focus, cultivating wisdom and generosity, and practicing self-healing exercises. Touching on diet, the soul, and karma, Hansard promotes a holistic view of healing while illustrating with prominent cases from his own practice and explicit instructions for a variety of healing and meditative exercises. Going beyond Bill Moyers's work in Healing and the Mind, Hansard emphasizes that we can not only use the mind to prevent and cure illness, but that we can also use it to create and maintain a psychological balance which will carry us peacefully through life and into death. Wise and inspiring, The Tibetan Art of Living will set you on a sensible path to health and happiness. --Brian Bruya

AN EXCELLENT INTRODUCTION TO BON MEDICINE AND CULTURE:
A student of mine gave me this book for appraisal. It is both excellent and clear description of the oldest of the Bon spiritual traditions of medicine and culture. As a doctor in the Bon way and a married teacher of the three types of Bon,it brings complex ideas very simple. This book is of the early Bon not Yung Drung Bon of the monks, but there is much that is the same. It is a genuine book and has got much praise from other Bon teachers. The teacher of the author, his clan is known to us who come from Amdo and it is a good guide to the first of early Tibetan culture-the author is a dood doctor in the Tibretan way of Bon medicine when I met him somes years ago in Germany at a conference.I give the author much blessing. Tsering Damchog, Nagpa Training School,Sikkim , India

a masterrful work:
Having taught Bon to many people in the East and West, this book shown to me by a student is a revelation of clarity.This young man has obvioysly been taught by learned people and his spiritual realisation is obvious. The west is fortunate to have such a treasure, I look closely to what the future may bring for him and his work. Dorjong Rimpoche, Tajit Bon Retreat, The Kingdom of Mustang

Just A Wee-Bit Hard To Believe:
Ok, here's this guy's story. As a child, living down Australia way, he was just out playing with some friends one day when a tibetan/shaman/healer located him out of the blue using some tibetan astrological method that remains undisclosed. It seems the author had been picked out through some advanced technique of divination to be the recipient of an ancient knowledge handed down for centuries through a tibetan lineage. So, this anglo kid's parents talked to the tibetan, totally accepted all of this at face value, and allowed their little son to go visit the tibetan after school and on weekends through all the years he was growing up. Gee, what understanding parents. They must have been big believers in astrology too, to not decide the old tibetan was either a bad influence or a humongous waste of time or a plain old distraction from school for their young son. Maybe he showed them his shaman's license, clearing up any suspicions of his motives they might have had, that most parents would have had, if their child was approached by a total stranger with a story like that out of thin air, suspicions that he was really a Phillipino child molester pretending to be tibetan or something of that nature. Anyway, through all these years when the Tibetan had nothing better to do than cool his heals and wait for the anglo kid to get out of school so he could continue his lessons in Tibetanism, the young boy was given all this profound knowledge. So, here's my question: if this is all true and above board, why no pictures of him and the old tibetan back when they were spending all of their free time together? Not one? Not even one eensy weensy one? If it was my life, I'd have plenty of pictures of me and my beloved tibetan mentor, you can bet. Apparently this guy and his mum and dad never thought of that in all the years he was growing up. And what a kid he was--willing to sacrifice all that play at football and tag, and everything else you can name: girlfriends, listening to rock and roll, friends, peer group, just to hang out with some elderly asian and study things that would bore a western child stiff. And in all this rather far out story, not one shred, not one SCINTILLA, not one IOTA of documentation that it's true is ever offered. Gosh, you don't think he just...gulp...made it up do you? Well, friends, call me skeptical, call me negative, say I have a really bad attitude, but that's exactly what I think. I think he just made it up. I LOVE Tibetans and Tibetan culture from deep down inside, but I don't think there's anything in this book you couldn't dig out at a really good library with book-borrowing privileges. If you want to study tibetan culture, do yourself a favor, find books by real tibetans. Tenzin Wangyal's "Healing With Form, Energy and Light," or "Tibetan Medicine" by the venerable Rechung Rinpoche. Skip this one until some kind of proof of this semi-ridiculous story is provided.

EXCELLENT:
I have read the Tibetan Art of Living it is a rare treasure , a distillation by the author who has real understanding asnd spiritual acheivement. It is obvious in the hints of his training and effortless description of old Bon medicine and wisdom. It is a book shown to me by a professor at an american university and it is the real thing,I will encourage all students of differing types of Tibeyan wisdom to learn from the new and emerging spiritual master.

Genuine Tibetan Wisdom:
As a professor of Tibetan culture I can say that this book is genuine and excellent. KB CHAffin's review is interesting and I will inform the family of Mr Hansard's teacher about Mr Chaffin's words. Mr Hansard is a teacher and physician of Tibetan medicine of high calibre as many othodox doctors, East and West can attest to. The Tibetan Art of Living and Mr Hansards new book, The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking are powerful translations of Tibetan culture to West that brings much needed clarity and wisdom.