By Adam Okerblom, LAc, DAOM
02-11-2026
It was a wonderful experience connecting with Yo San University to offer a weekend course on Tibetan Medicine to the students of their Acupuncture Doctoral Program.
The class presented the foundation theory of traditional Tibetan Medicine, covering the nature of solar/lunar energies, the Five Elements, the Three Humors or “Nyepa” ཉེས་པ།, and the elemental constitutions or “Rang Zhin” རང་བཞིན།. We also studied the basis for therapeutic treatments, focusing on Tibetan Moxibustion, known as “me tsa” མེ་བཙའ།. This was an intense crash course introduction to the Tibetan Science of Healing, “Sowa Rigpa” གསོ་བ་རིག་པ།, but the students followed along beautifully.
We then workshopped some treatments from the classical texts of Tibetan Medicine, the “Gyud Zhi” རྒྱུད་བཞི།, including “horme” ཧོར་མེ།, herbal compress, “me tsa” མེ་བསྟའ།, Tibetan-style moxibustion, and “do tel” རྡོ་ཏེལ། “stone hammer” therapy.
I was delighted to witness the students enthusiastically diving into therapeutic practice, getting creative with oils, stones, and compresses. This was a great demonstration of how Tibetan Medicine theory and treatments can be dynamic, enriching additions to an acupuncturist’s toolbox of skills and lore.