Tukdam: a matter of life and death

In the West, death is considered to be something definitive. But an extraordinary Tibetan phenomenon shows that the boundary between life and death is sometimes not so clear at all. In what Tibetans call tukdam, Buddhists die in a controlled way in meditation. And although they've been declared clinically dead, they often stay upright in a meditation position. Their bodies show no signs of decay for days and sometimes weeks. From the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, the person has not died yet, consciousness is still present and protects the body from decomposition.

This feature documentary explores a phenomenon that is blurring life and death to an unprecedented degree. In what Tibetan Buddhists call “tukdam,” advanced meditators die in a consciously controlled way.

Although they are dead by our biomedical standards, they often remain upright in meditation; remarkably, their bodies remain fresh and lifelike for days, sometimes weeks after clinical death, with no signs of decay. After groundbreaking scientific research into tukdam and taking us into the intimate death stories of Tibetan meditators, the film juxtaposes scientific and Tibetan perspectives in an attempt to unravel the mystery of “tukdam”.

For now, science is puzzled: the Ibodies of some Buddhist monks do not appear to perish after their death. They just stay upright, like they're taking a nap. According to the eminent American neurosurgeon Richard Davidson they are probably in “the most rudimentary form of consciousness that still occurs after the moment someone is considered dead according to the current Western definition”. And this, in turn, would raise elementary questions about the human mind and brain.

A small group of scientists is going to take tukdam through the scientific mill. They start collecting data from Buddhists who have fully internalized meditation, delve into their way of life and further investigate the lifeless bodies of monks in tukdam. Based on, among other things, their heart rate, respiration, body heat, brain activity, decomposition and skin flexibility, it can be empirically determined that they have indeed postponed the usual post-mortem process?