Must Leave

Thursday morning I received some sad news from home and must leave Bir, my fellow instructors, and the monks and nuns immediately.  Unfortunately, I will have to shorten my stay and return to the States now.  I am entering this post from the airport in New Delhi where I am waiting for a flight back to the USA.

Before I left Bir, the monks and I were able to discuss the anatomy and physiology of neurons and reflexes.  We talked about the different parts of a neuron, the resting potential, the action potential and chemical transmission.  This was a lot of material to cover in such a short period of time, but I think I was able to provide the monks with the basics to understand neurotransmission.  Because I have to leave them so soon, I will not be around to answer what I am a sure will be their many, many questions.  I gave my email address to all of the monks and nuns and my TA (Tenzin) will translate emails for any of the monastics who do not understand English.  I expect to hear from many of them. 

Immediately after my teaching session on Friday, I was ready to leave for the Dharamsala airport.  Bryce Johnson and Bobby Sager were able to change my flights to get me out of India as fast as possible.  However, I was told that because of bad weather, my flight from Dharamsala to Delhi had been canceled.  I would have to drive five hours to a different airport to catch a flight to Delhi and then another flight back to the US.  

So I started towards the new airport with one of the Tibetan translators who was going to be dropped off at Dharamsala.  He was able to call the airline and found out that the flight was re-scheduled and that I would make my original flight to Delhi.  So, instead of a 5 hour drive, I had only a 2 hour drive back to Dharamsala.  (I was lucky to see my first monkeys on the side of the road during the drive!)

It is unfortunate that I will not be able to stay with the program for the second week.  The Tibetan monks are such great students; they are so attentive and curious and ready to learn each and every day.  Even though I spent only a short time with them, I consider them to be my students, my teachers and my friends.  I will miss them.  But this is not the end of the story.  It is likely that I will join them again for a second workshop in a few months and we will continue our discussions about the brain.