View of Tibetan Children's Village College

Going Home

Our last dinner at Bangalore was special.  As usual, the cook made an excellent meal, but it was not the food that made this dinner special.  Rather, it was the after dinner entertainment.  Three of our Tibetan translators serenaded the group with a selection of Tibetan songs.  One song was an adaptation of “This Land is Your Land” and another was a Tibetan version of “We Shall Overcome.”  Kelly videoed some of the singing and it should be fun to watch the Tibetan Trio again.

Dinesh, the driver who took us into Bangalore city, was right on time.  He arrived at the Tibetan Children’s Village College at 10 pm sharp to take us to the airport for our trip back to Seattle.  The drive to the airport took about 1.5 hours and although the nighttime traffic was better than daytime traffic, the ride was still a bit harrowing.   Nevertheless, we arrived at the Bangalore airport with plenty of time to check-in for our 2:30 am (yes, 2:30 in the morning) flight.

Last Day

At about 6 pm on Friday, my teaching in the Science for Monks program came to an end.  I told the group that Kelly and I were headed home later than night.  I mentioned how honored I was to work with them.  I wrote my email address on the board and told all of them that we should stay in contact with each other.  Kelly also addressed the group and offered her email address and said she would be happy to send them copies of photos she had taken.  I hope that the monks do stay in contact with us.

As a gesture of appreciation, I shared a box of Frango chocolates that I had brought from Seattle with the monks.  Bryce Johnson then made a small speech thanking me from coming all the way from the States to participate in the workshop.  He presented both Kelly and me with a white scarf and a bag of presents.

As Kelly and I packed later that evening, there was a knock on our door.  One of the nuns who had befriended Kelly wanted to say goodbye to us.  This particular nun was from the country of Bhutan who was now living at a nunnery in southern India.   She wrote Kelly a very nice letter and brought us snacks for our journey home.  We had a few peanut butter granola bars that we gave her in exchange:  she said she liked peanut butter.

Learning and Memory

The monks seemed to be especially interested to learn the western science perspective of memory and learning.  I started this discussion by talking about classical and operant conditioning and the different types of memory (sensory memory, short term memory, long term memory).  When I mention the famous case of “HM”, the man who suffered from anterograde amnesia after bilateral surgery that removed his hippocampus and some surrounding brain tissue, the monks had many questions.  The first question they asked was whether HM could remember new procedural memories.  I explained that HM could learn new procedures, but he could not remember how he was taught these new procedures.

We had a lot of fun with some games to illustrate how memory worked.  I had Karma, one of the five excellent Tibetan translators, translate lists of concrete words and abstract words.  I also had him make up some nonsense words in Tibetan.  Karma read each list and had the monks memorize what they heard.  As expected, the concrete words were much easier to remember than the nonsense words.  Surprisingly, the abstract words (e.g., honor, truth, anger) were remembered about the same as the concrete words.  Usually, abstract words, which are difficult to visualize, are more difficult to remember than concrete words.

We also played a number memory game by getting into a large circle.  One monk started by saying a number (they wanted to use English rather than Tibetan) and then the next monk in line had to repeat the number and then add a new number.  The third monk had to repeat the first two numbers and add another number, and so on down the line.  The game started fine, but then the monks started to add numbers sequentially such as “8, 6, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6” and I had to stop them because what they were doing was not really memorizing numbers.  I made a new rule:  numbers had to be random.   So we started again.  We got to only 2 or 3 numbers, when someone started counting in sequence again and the next person followed.  When everyone realized what had happened we all started laughing.

The next game we played was “Who’s Missing.”   One monk was chosen to memorize all of the other monks sitting in a circle.  The chosen monk then had to turn around and another monk then left the room.  The chosen monk had to decide which monk was missing.  The first few times we tried it, the monks had trouble identifying who was missing.  One of the Tibetan translators whispered to me that one monk thought that the game was easy and that he could tell who was missing without a problem.

I announced to the group that one monk thought the game was easy and that we would test him.  Sure enough he was able to name the monk who left the room two times in a row.  To make the game more difficult for him, when he turned around, the other monks changed their positions in the circle.  But sure enough, the monk was still able to name the missing monk.  Finally, we decided to play a trick on the monk.  This time, when he turned around, no one left the room.  When he opened his eyes, he looked about the room a bit before sighing a little, but he did not give up trying.  I came over to him and told him no one was missing and everyone gave him a round of applause.

Catching Up

It has been one week since I left India.  I'll post a few more stories from notes I took during my time at the workshop.

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The Science for Monks program wanted to create a short video about their work so Bryce Johnson asked me to represent the western scientists and educators who have participated.  Videographer Mark Jackson flew in from South Africa to interview one monk and me.  Mark, Jampa Khechok who is a monk from Sera Monastery, and I had lunch together on Thursday to discuss the interview.

The next day, Mark set up two chairs and we started to film.  We were asked questions about what we liked about science, how science could be integrated with Tibetan Buddhist education and what Tibetan Buddhism can offer science.

I think the interview went well, but we will have to wait and see the final products.  Jampa Khechok had to leave soon after the interview to return to his monastery for some tests, but he would return to Bangalore and the Science for Monks program on Sunday for the final week of the workshop.