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Movie Screening: Tukdam—Between Worlds
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In concert with the Generative Contemplation Symposium, the feature documentary, "Tukdam: Between Worlds" by Donagh Coleman, will be shown at the Violet Crown Charlottesville. A reception and Q & A with the filmmaker follows the screening. Tickets are $20 per person and are on sale now here: Eventbrite. Ticket price is included for registrants of the Symposium.
Synopsis
In what Tibetans call tukdam, deceased meditators show no signs of death for days, or even weeks. Juxtaposing ground-breaking scientific research and Tibetan perspectives, this creative documentary challenges our notions of life and death, and where we draw the line between them. View the trailer below or here.
Most of us think of death as something clear-cut, and that medical science has it neatly figured out. This feature documentary explodes such assumptions through its exploration of a phenomenon that blurs life and death to an unprecedented degree. In what Tibetan Buddhists call tukdam, advanced meditators die in a consciously controlled manner. Though dead according to our biomedical standards, they often stay sitting upright in meditation; remarkably, their bodies remain fresh and lifelike, without signs of decay for days, sometimes weeks after clinical death. Following groundbreaking American scientific research into tukdam and taking us into intimate death stories of Tibetan meditators, the film juxtaposes scientific and Tibetan perspectives as it tries to unravel the mystery of tukdam.
