Workshop Day 1

Tuesday, January 17, 2012, 3:30 am

Monday, January 16, was the first full day of the Science for Monks Workshop.   Classes are held in the main instruction building a 10 minute walk from our sleeping quarters. 

So far, 23 monks and 3 nuns have arrived and 5 more monastics are expected to arrive later.  Tori and Lori, two science educators from the Exploratorium, arrived in the morning to join us too.  Geshe Lhakdor, the director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamshala, India, gave a welcome speech to everyone to set the stage for the workshop.  Geshe Lhakdor was the Dalai Lama’s personal translator for 16 years and is a well-respected leader in the Tibetan community.

After the speech, Tori, Lori, Bryce, Kelly and I gave short introductions about who we are and our plans for the workshop.  Then we watched a video of a speech given last month by the Dalai Lama.  We had Karma, one of the Tibetan translators, translate the Tibetan into English so we could understand.  In his speech, the Dalai Lama described why he thought it was important that people learn science.

Each workshop day is scheduled divided into four 1.5 hour blocks.  Breakfast is served at 7 am and then the first block starts at 9:30 am and ends at 11 am.  After a tea break, the second block starts at 11:30 am and ends at 1 pm.  The third block starts at 2:30 pm and goes to 4 pm, followed by another tea break, then the fourth block from 4:30 pm to 6 pm.  Dinner is served at 7 pm.

The tea breaks are very important, especially to the monks.  It gives everyone a chance to stretch and relax a bit.  The tea we drink is a traditional Tibetan brew:  it is very sweet with milk and some spices that I cannot identify.  I told my daughter Kelly to watch them prepare it so she can duplicate the recipe.  Apparently, it is not simple to make correctly.

During my teaching block, I explained what I had been doing since the last workshop in May.  With a translator at my side, I told the monastics about the new Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering where I work and about my new project to investigate the neuroactive properties of medicinal plants and herbs.  I encouraged them to let me know if they know of any plants that I could use in my work.  We then did a very quick review of neurotransmission.