Last Updated on February 6, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
At the suggestion of H.H. of the Dalai Lama, the Tibet Institute has been involved for 22 years in efforts to familiarize nuns and monks in the Tibetan exile monasteries in India, but also in Rikon itself, with scientific thinking. Swiss teachers, supported by Tibetan translators, teach in numerous exile monasteries. The project is called “Science meets Dharma” – “Natural science and Buddhist teaching meet”. The idea behind this is that Tibetan Buddhism must also be open to other ways of thinking if it is to survive and develop further. At the same time, however, the western world is also enriched when it deals with Buddhist concepts.
https://www.tir50.ch/id-50-jahre-tibet-institut.html
Before the project “Science meets Dharma”of the Tibetan Institute in Rikon Switzerland, Kunchok Lungtog, Buddhist monk from India did not know that the earth is a sphere. Now he knows, and that is where the dialogue between Buddhist monks and Western scientists starts. But is it helpful to teach Buddhist monks who seem not to have the school education of Swiss people, and do not know, that the earth is a sphere, teach about natural science, mathematics, chemistry and biology? Would it not be better to start teaching them where also Swiss people start their school education, and teach them first the most basic things every Swiss child learns in school?