Eliot Tokar - Tibetan Medicine

07/08/2025

05/03/2024

Tibetan medicine's insights into the relationship of one's healthcare practice to spiritual development according to the teachings I received from Dr. Trogawa Rinpoche.
Video clip: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1KBxrFwWe9E3VWTA/?

04/23/2024

A talk by my root teacher Dr. Trogawa Rinpoche.

Dr. Trogawa Rinpoche (1931-2005) was one of the most highly respected practitioners of Tibetan medicine...

08/08/2023

This summer marks the 40th anniversary of the beginning of my career as a Tibetan medicine doctor.

I want to commemorate this anniversary by paying homage to my teachers who entrusted me to help perpetuate their lineages, participate in the effort to preserve the centuries-old practice of Tibetan medicine, and spread its clinical practice in the West.

My studies in Tibetan medicine began in 1983 with a course designed by Dr. Yeshi Dhonden. Dr. Dhonden created this course to begin training Western students in Tibetan medicine in a traditional manner over a three-year period. In 1984, I was accepted as an apprentice to Dr. Trogawa Rinpoche and continued to study and work with him until the late 1990s. In 1993, Dr. Trogawa instructed me to begin seeing patients while continuing my studies as he had planned.

It has been fulfilling to have helped many patients suffering from illness to regain their health through the wisdom and practice of Tibetan medicine. Moreover, I've worked to contribute to the literature regarding Tibetan medicine by advancing its interpretation and understanding in the West (even finding my work, oddly enough, being quoted in the MCU), lectured in North America and Asia to university students, biomedical students, physicians, and colleagues, and to have been able to help raise tens of thousands of dollars that helped Dr. Trogawa re-establish his lineage by creating the Chagpori Tibetan Medical Institute in West Bengal, India.

06/20/2023

A link from Tricycle magazine
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tricycle-magazine_dharmamedicine-tibetanmedicine-mindbodybalance-activity-7074385544859787265-wnl_?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

05/31/2023

The New York Times recently ran an article on the current fad re Ashwagandha. Here is the article and my comment. For those who can't access it, the comment's text is:
"In fact in Ayurveda - the traditional medicine of India - where the medicinal use of Ashwagandha is best understood, it is not typically used as a single herbal supplement. Instead, it is compounded with other herbs to create a safe and effective compound meant to treat a range of health conditions based on the unique Ayurvedic diagnostic system. No herbal can legitimately be said to treat biomedical disease diagnoses; whether or not they can be effective in some cases. Until research protocols that can properly analyze the traditional uses of herbal medicines become the norm, we will always experience faddish uses of medicinal herbs and mostly useless hackneyed analysis by those who falsely believe that biomedical research is the only valid evidence. This false view ignores the centuries of clinical experience of doctors of sophisticated ancient medical systems like Ayurveda, Tibetan medicine, Chinese medicine, and Unani medicine. The proper and effective use of herbs of medicine must eventually be reckoned with if we wish to further the safe and effective treatment of disease without the toxicity and adverse effects typically of all modern pharmaceuticals."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/well/mind/ashwagandha-supplement-benefits.html?campaign_id=0&emc=edit_cr_20230407&instance_id=0&nl=comments-notifications®i_id=4364595&segment_id=0&user_id=e139d3429498db2d3ab279c25f129a4d &permid=124263608:124263608

05/31/2023

https://www.tibetanreview.net/tibetan-medicine-root-texts-included-in-unescos-memory-of-the-world-register/

05/31/2023

02/23/2023

༄༄ལོ་གསར་བཀྲིས་བདེ་ལེགས་ཞུ།།། ༜࿂༽
LOSAR TASHI DELEG!

12/27/2022

A very satisfying example of what Tibetan medicine can accomplish especially for older patients who, if properly treated, can show positive results in direct opposition to the expectations re aging and health by biomedicine. I am satisfied to have a number of patients over 60 yrs old who have well exceeded their MD’s expectations regarding their health prognosis and as a result require little to no regular use of any pharmaceuticals.

★★★★★ "Tibetan medicine doctor Eliot Tokar conducted a proper assessment, accurately diagnosed me, and drew up an effective treatment plan. That was three transformative years ago. Before meeting Dr. Tokar, I was being treated by a myriad of biomedical physicians (MDs) and going downhill f...