'Meditation as Medicine' Research Study Results
Pain Reduced by One-Third Among Online Workshop Participants
In summer 2016, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and GlideWing Online Workshops offered a three-week online workshop featuring Bön Buddhist teachings and meditation practices for reducing physical and emotional pain. A formal research study was conducted to determine the effects of the workshop.
The findings showed that participants’ physical and emotional pain were reduced by more than one-third after three weeks, and that the effects persisted after the workshop. There was a very strong correlation between worst daily levels of pain and levels of draining or wasted energy for participants on the days of the workshop. 
The workshop, "Healing from the Source: Meditation as Medicine for Body and Mind," was based on meditation practices detailed in The True Source of Healing by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Hay House, 2015. Study volunteers were invited to bring to the workshop any form of pain they wished to heal – anything from mild physical, mental or emotional discomfort to severe or deeply rooted pain – and were encouraged to engage as fully as possible in viewing the instructional videos, practicing the meditations and completing the study-related surveys.
Throughout, participants learned how to host their pain in open awareness. They were encouraged to cultivate kindness toward self and kindness toward pain, and with any dissolution of pain they were guided to notice any positive, healing qualities arising from the space that opened up.
The next GlideWing session of "Healing from the Source" is scheduled for June 30–July 22, 2018.
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