By DORIE TURNER Associated Press
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Some of the newest students at Emory University’s student body may act like typical college kids, but there’s a key difference: They’re Tibetan monks sent by the Dalai Lama to the United States to learn science.
Wearing the traditional crimson robes and closely shorn heads of Tibetan monastics, the six men — most in their 30s — are taking physics, biology and chemistry classes with hopes of returning to Tibetan monasteries in India to teach science to other monks and nuns.
It’s the first established program for Tibetan monks from India to train at a Western university, said Geshe Lhakdor, director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in India.
“They are pioneers,” he said in a recent interview while visiting Atlanta.
The program is the newest evolution of the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, which is helping the Dalai Lama with his goal of training monastics for the 21st century. Monks and nuns are masters of the mind through the practice of ancient traditions, but they must also master modern concepts of science and technology, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said in a recent visit to Emory.
“The monastic institution is traditionally the learning center, so we must put science in this institution,” said the Dalai Lama. “Even Buddha himself said ‘All my followers shouldn’t accept my teachers out of faith, but out of constant investigation.'”
For the monks, the year spent at Emory in Atlanta means long hours sitting in classes conducted in a language they struggle with and terms they’ve never studied before. Try explaining the concept of photosynthesis — a process where plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen with the help of sunlight — to someone who has never even heard of a chemical compound.
“My mother wasn’t happy about my coming here,” said Ngawang Norbu, 36, who is from Bylakuppe, the largest Tibetan settlement in India. “But when I told her it was part of His Holiness’ vision, she was very happy. I’m taking a small step toward fulfilling his wishes.”
Each morning the monks wake up early to meditate in their bedrooms before heading to classes, meetings with professors or English tutoring sessions. They cook meals at their off-campus apartment to save money and shop together at Indian food markets and the dollar store.
In their free time, the monks pore over their lessons, revise homework, watch science teachings in English on YouTube and play sports with Emory classmates. Some of the monks listen to the Dalai Lama’s teachings on mp3 players on the way to class or watch videos of the spiritual leader online.
Dylan Kady, 18, an Emory freshman from Holland, Pa., invited the monks to play tennis a few times during the semester and took a freshman seminar class with two of them.
The monks use Facebook as a way to connect with classmates at Emory and keep up with their fellow monks and nuns back home. Some of the monks had to take a crash course in using a computer when they got to campus because they don’t have much access to technology at the monasteries.
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Tibetan-monk-is-your-lab-partner-931028.php
