Sowa Rigpa · གསོ་བ་རིག་པ

Before medicine,
there was nourishment.
Before treatment,
there was rhythm.

For twelve hundred years, the Tibetan science of healing has asked a different question than Western medicine. Not "what disease do you have?" — but "which of the three humours — Lung, Tripa, Beken — has drifted from balance, and how do we invite it home?" སྡུག་བསྔལ་བ་མེད་པ་གོ་འཕང་ཡིན། · The absence of suffering is the ground of healing. — Four Tantras

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Four doors into Sowa Rigpa

Begin where your body asks.

Sowa Rigpa is a 1,200-year-old system, codified in the twelfth century in the Four Tantras (rGyud bZhi). We have distilled it into four gentle starting points — none of them prescriptive, all of them in conversation with your own body.

Four ideas to carry with you

Treat the person, not the disease

Sowa Rigpa begins with your unique humour — the same symptom in two people calls for two different responses. A cold in a Lung type is not a cold in a Beken type.

Prevent before you cure

The Four Tantras place food and conduct before medicine and therapy. The highest physician is the one who keeps you well through diet, season, and sleep long before disease arrives.

Balance, not battle

Health is not the absence of symptoms. It is the moving equilibrium of Lung, Tripa, and Beken — the three humours — rising and settling in their proper seats.

The mind is the root of the humours

The Four Tantras teach that the three humours arise from three mental poisons: attachment (Lung), aversion (Tripa), and confusion (Beken). Healing the mind is medicine reaching its own root.

Stillpoint Sowa Rigpa is educational. We do not diagnose, treat, cure, or prescribe. For any health concern please consult a licensed healthcare practitioner. Statements on this site have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.