Conference Day 4

After breakfast, I was invited by Bobby Sager to walk up to a monastery where the monks had started their morning chanting.  The 100 or so monks had seemed to be quite young, ranging in age from about 6 years old to 16 years old. I stayed for about 15 minutes before heading up to the Dalai Lama's temple for the last day of the conference.

The final conference day of the 25th Anniversary of the Science for Monks and Nuns program started with the sun shining brightly.  The topic of the day was "particles." It was fascinating to hear monks' and western scientists' perspectives about quantum mechanics.  Much of the discussion covered material unfamiliar to me, but it seemed to generate much interest from the monastics.

Monk I have known for 15 years; he helped with
the "World of Your Senses" Exhibit.

When the morning session of the conference concluded, everyone was dismissed for lunch.  The abbots and western scientists were ushered into a separate room for a catered lunch of India and Tibetan dishes.  After lunch, I headed into the temple courtyard where students from the Tibetan Children's Village School had gathered.  Eventually some the students approached me to ask questions.  They asked if I had a favorite exhibit and I, of course, answered "The World of Your Senses." I mentioned that I thought the panels about vision were especially nice.  I quickly drew a blind spot tester on a piece of paper to show how one of the panels drew the optic nerve connection on the eyeball.  The students were quite impressed.

The day ended with a group photo of all attendees:  about 200 monks, nuns, science center staff and western scientists.