Tibetan monks and nuns study modern science alongside Buddhism

Over 30 Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns attended a science workshop on Monday in the Himalayan foothills in India.

They studied physics, neuroscience and biology in a bid to merge modern and traditional education systems, as part of the Dalai Lama’s wish modernize traditional Buddhist learning.

The two week event was organized by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA) and the exiled Tibetan government in the city of Dharamsala in India.

“For decades, His Holiness (Dalai Lama) has dreamed of introducing a broad scientific education into the curriculum of the Tibetan monastic education traditions,” LTWA Director Geshe Lhakdor said at the inauguration of the event.

The workshop brought together 20 monks and 12 nuns who were studying for their Geshema, the equivalent of a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy.

According to the Central Tibetan Administration, Lhakdor said that the initiative could change the paradigm of education in a way that would fuse the training of “heart and mind.”

For years, China has maintained the position that Tibet is an inseparable part of its territory, whereas the exiled Tibetans claimed that their territory was occupied during the advance of Chinese communist troops in 1951.

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in Dharamsala since the 1959 Tibetan uprising against the Chinese People’s Republic.

The city is also home to the exiled Tibetan Government.