Accepted Panels

In what Tibetans call tukdam, advanced Buddhist practitioners die in meditation. Though declared clinically dead, their bodies remain fresh and lifelike, without signs of decay for days, sometimes weeks after clinical death. According to Tibetan Buddhism, the meditators are resting in a subtle state of consciousness with an associated subtle material energy present in the body, and so are still in the process of dying. Yet according to modern biomedical and legal definitions they are dead. As a biological and cultural phenomenon, tukdam disrupts normative biomedical categories of life and death, mind and body, and offers a fascinating focal point through which to explore such delineations and the incommensurability of what appears to be culturally-scripted biology. The presentation will explore my medical anthropological dissertation research and include audiovisual material filmed for my feature documentary film Tukdam: Between Worlds.