the origins of life at a buddhist monastery in bhutan
TRANSCRIPT
THE TWO CULTURES
The origins of life at a Buddhist monastery in Bhutan
Pier Luigi Luisi
Received: 27 July 2013 / Accepted: 8 October 2013 / Published online: 8 November 2013
� Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2013
Abstract This is a report of a teaching course in a
Buddhist monastery (a nunnery) in Bhutan, where I—as a
member of the Midn and Life Institute directed by the
Dalai Lama—have been invited to illustrate the main
aspects of modern science in the field of the origin of life
and evolution. The class was formed by ca. 60 nuns, and a
good number of Buddhist Lamas and senior learned monks,
including Khentsye Rimpoche’, a well-known religious
leader in the region. The course, consisting in 4 h teaching
every week day for 2 weeks, proposed first the origin of
life from the inanimate matter, then molecular evolution till
the formation of the first living cells, then Darwinian
principles of evolution and the origin of biodiversity, till
the origin of mankind and the emergence of consciousness.
Also due to the continuous questions of these learned
monks, the course developed into a dialogue between sci-
ence and traditional Buddhism in all these mentioned
issues. While a substantial agreement could be found in
certain areas, in others—like the definition of life and
consciousness—we had to admit a substantial divergence.
Clarification of this was found very useful and challenging
from both sides.
Keywords Buddhism � Origin of life � Darwinism �Consciousness � Reincarnation � Evolution �Emergent properties � Self-organization � Sentient
beings � Dalai Lama
There are certain invitations in life that a scientist cannot
decline. This is how it was with the invitation sent to me by
Matthieu Ricard, one of the most well-known Dalai Lama’s
interpreters and student, when I was invited to teach a
series of biology classes in Bhutan for 3 weeks during
September 2012 at Sissina, a Buddhist monastery for nuns.
Regarding Bhutan, I knew what everyone knows: it is a
state of a monarchial regime, comparable in size to Sicily,
situated on the flanks of the Himalayas and south of Tibet.
It is Buddhist in the most traditional way imaginable and
one of the few names in the world that still evokes a sense
of mystery and attraction among travelers. I had read that
the people of Bhutan speak Dzongkha, similar to Tibetan,
and use the phrase Tashi Delek as a greeting, the equivalent
of our ‘‘salve’’.
I was invited to the event as a member of the Institute of
Mind And Life. The institute, where the Dalai Lama is the
spiritus rectus, was founded by the neurobiologist Fran-
cisco Varela and an American business man, Adam Engle.
The purpose was to establish a dialogue between classic
Western science and Buddhism; specifically, they wanted
to focus on the mind and conscience. Buddhism has already
investigated the mind and conscience for 2,000 years,
unlike Western science, which has only approached these
subjects recently. However, due to the Dalai Lama’s
undying curiosity for science in general, the annual con-
ferences—which are held in Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama’s
location in exile in Northern India—rapidly spread to
quantic physics, cosmology, biology, and psychology.
Also, the conceptual and epistemic aspects of these disci-
plines were brought to light and compared with philosophy
and the fundamentals of Buddhism. Obviously this is part
of a larger context, i.e., the interplay between science and
spirituality. Many would agree that science and spirituality
are the two main driving forces of our civilization since
immemorial time. In a sense, they could be considered the
expressions of the two cultures: science with its pragmatic
P. L. Luisi (&)
Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
123
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DOI 10.1007/s12210-013-0259-8
arm of technology, and spirituality with its institutionalized
arm of religion. This statement could be conveniently
accompanied by a conciliatory corollary, which says that
science without spirituality may bring us to an ‘arid
disaster’ through the unchallenged domination of technol-
ogy, while spirituality alone would nail us down to a non-
realistic life form. Clearly, the compromise and harmony
between the two major driving forces should be the pre-
requisite for the healthy progress of knowledge. And there
are nowadays hopeful signs that go in this direction, as
more people are becoming aware of this necessity.
For all these reasons, and maybe others, in all the years at
Dharamsala, there has always been a fantastic panel of sci-
entists, who can be read about at www.mindandlife.org. For
these scientists, the conferences in Dharamsala often represent
their initial interaction with Buddhism. And, similar to me,
many of them have kept their association with Buddhism since
then. The door, as in my case, was the set of ancient 2,000-
year-old principal philosophies, which were particularly per-
tinent to modern science. In the first place, the principle of
conditioned co-production’s causality (co-dependent Aris-
ing), for which everything is determined and conditioned by a
thousand other things, and nothing exists that has its own
intrinsic autonomy. Anatta is the idea of non-existence of the
self as a separate, unitary entity. In their words, there is this,
because there is that. There is not this, because there is not that.
The Buddhist teaching insists irrefutably on this universal
relatedness. And together with Anatta, there is also what they
call Anicca, impermanence, which states that there is not a
single phenomenon in the universe which is not transitory.
Everything that is born is bound to perish.
The lack of substantiality, of anything that has intrinsic
autonomy, leads to the concept of emptiness (not to be
confused with nothingness). One looks for something with
a validity of inherent existence and finds emptiness. In
Buddhist terms, ‘‘emptiness’’ refers to the lack of intrinsic
existence of phenomena. This also means that there is no
initial cause, or a God and the creation of ex nihilo.
It would be interesting to talk more about the Mind and
Life’ Institute, but we have to go back to Bhutan instead.
I flew from Bangkok to Paro, the only airport in Bhutan,
a small city of 40,000 people (the total population of the
state is 700,000). It is big like Thimphu, the capital, which
is roughly 1 h from Paro by car.
There was no one present to welcome me at the airport.
Knowing the Tibetan monks though, this did not surprise
me. With a little luck, I managed to find a car and reach the
Sishina monastery, pictured here in Fig. 1. The monastery
is home to 90 nuns, specifically of Tibetan Buddhism,
ranging from 13 to 60 years old.
The same evening I was introduced to all the nuns with
the help of a translator. I taught in English, the most
common foreign language in Bhutan.
We were in one large, bare room, assisted only by a
projector that I had brought with me. The nuns sat on the
ground. Our first bonding experience was when I saw them
there all around me, with their orange robes, completely
bald, looking at me with calm suspicion (see Fig. 2). My
task was not so much to change their views to be in favor of
modern science, but to inform them on how science sees
the issues closest to them, such as life, evolution and
consciousness. The main idea of these lessons is based on a
fundamental idea of the Dalai Lama. He believes his
monks and nuns should be well-informed on the world they
live in, and therefore should know about modern science,
too.
At my first lesson, I had the honor of having the region’s
most famous Rinpoche, Khyentsee Yangsi Rinpoche, par-
ticipate. He is the reincarnation of the most famous revered
Tibetan spiritual master of the twentieth century, Dilgo
Khyentse Rinpoche, who was also a teacher of the Dalai
Lama himself. In the Buddhist world, the fact that someone
Fig. 1 The Sishina monastery near Thimphu in Bhutan
Fig. 2 The classroom with the nuns
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is considered to be the reincarnation of an old master is
quite widely accepted. I ceased to ask questions about this
for quite some time.
Rinpoche literally means ‘‘very precious’’. It is often,
but not exclusively, a title given to a Tulku, that is ‘rein-
carnated Lama’ (Lama refers to an accomplished teacher,
to the Sanskrit term guru). The reincarnated Lama,
according to tradition, has chosen ‘‘intentionally’’ to be
reborn (instead of dwelling in Nirvana) to help sentient
beings on the path of freedom from ignorance and suffer-
ing. The term Rinpoche is also used as a respectful way to
address any great spiritual master or learned scholar.
Let us go back to to our Khyentsee Rinpoche. His
monastery was in Paro, over an hour’s drive away, and he
came with his escort of monks, for all my teaching, a total
of 4 h (two in the morning and two in the afternoon). After
my afternoon class, we had tea with him, an important
time, where the young Lama posed further questions. His
maturity seemed to be extraordinary, his mind acute and
curiosity insatiable. I was so surprised to learn that he
was only nineteen. Obviously, having been recognized as
reincarnated when he was about 3 or 4 years old, he was
immediately subjected to a harsh discipline of studying for
about 12 h a day.
I began my lessons discussing the origins of life on
earth. Bald nuns attentively looked at my colorful slides,
took a lot of notes, but I could not understand from their
blank faces whether they were following me. I had to
present the ‘‘Big Bang Theory’’ first, and I had my first
surprise: a very long series of questions on this.
At first, I could not understand even a word of their
questions. Apart from the rough English, the nuns talked
looking down at the ground, covering their mouths with
their tunics. This is an old local custom, which dictates that
when you talk to a superior you must cover your mouth so
as not to breathe on him/her. With the help of an inter-
preter, it then became clear that all the questions concerned
two major issues: the reason why (for the Big Bang), and
what there was prior. This kind of curiosity was probably
due to their philosophy of co-dependent arising, which says
there is no such thing as the creation ex nihilo of something
without any cause or condition. Every event has to be
caused by at least one previous event, and it is normally
caused by many interconnected events- and has to impact
the next events. The discussion immediately became highly
animated, and the nuns started talking without using their
tunics to cover their mouths. They were not happy with the
idea of a Big Bang coming from nothing, but they liked the
idea of an endless cycle of Big Bang and Big Crunch,
without a beginning or an end.
The creation of the world is a very important point. In
the Buddhist world, there is no creation, a paradigm that,
on the other hand, represents a scientific concern, almost a
fixation, in our Western world. We are fixated on studies on
the origins of the universe, the origins of life, of intelli-
gence, of humanity, and of the conscience: something that
was not there before and that, at some point, comes out as a
new thing from an undefined cloud of preliminary clues,
the emergence of the new. The concept of emerging
properties is, in fact, something that I have not been able to
find in Buddhist literature. Buddhists take more into
account the concept of a network—this exists because that
existed, everything is connected with everything else.
Therefore, there is no need for a quantum jump from
existence to non-existence.
So, I explained to them that the origin of life on Earth, for
science is seen as a progression from aggregated molecules
of inanimate matter, slowly developing in structures with
architecture and functions growing more and more complex,
up to the formation of cells able to reproduce themselves.
The ‘‘principle of continuity’’ from the inorganic world to
the living world did not garner much emotion from the nuns.
Then I tackled the next topic, ‘‘what is life?’’ for sci-
ence. Here I proposed the Maturana and Varela’s vision on
autopoiesis, which says the living cellular system is char-
acterized by self-maintenance from within, namely from
the inside of the boundary. It is self-maintenance based on
an internal regeneration process of every component that is
being transformed. Think of my beard that grows back, of
my hemoglobin or of my glycogen, which are continuously
regenerated from within, or of a tree, which, having lost its
fruit during winter grows new fruit and flowers in the
springtime, from within. Life, I said, ‘‘is a self-organizing
system that reorganizes itself from within. The product of
life is its own self-organization’’.
I added that they should not believe in those who say
that the principle of the living is reproduction, since two-
thirds of the human beings are not capable of reproduction
(either because they are too young, too old or sterile, or
because they are consecrated to religious life). Reproduc-
tion is the most important property of living things; it is the
basis of evolution and biodiversity. But, a property is not
the essence of the thing, just like flying is a property of an
airplane, but does not say anything about its actual essence.
I added, in this respect, that the equivalence between DNA
and life, usually taken for granted by many in the world of
traditional Western science, has had a negative influence
on the studies on life.
There was a little bit of peaceful discussion on this and
on the difference between property and essence.
I approached then the following question: Can life be
localized in a single spot, in a single reaction, in a single
chemical? Could the life of bacteria, for example, be
localized in this sense?
The answer is no, I specified. Life is not localizable; life
is the entire network of relations inside the living system.
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The life of bacteria is the bacteria as a whole of its meta-
bolic interactions, just like the life of an elephant is not
localizable in a single organ or in any spot, but is the
ensemble of relations between all the components of the
system. All the organs and perceptions cause and produce
an integrated system: the living being.
This was easily accepted, probably because it corre-
sponds to their concept of skandhas: these are five
‘‘aggregates’’ that put together all forms of existence for
Buddhism—physical form or matter; sensation, that we
experience with our senses; perception (the capability of
recognizing, which includes thinking, cognition, recogni-
tion); mental dispositions (all volitional actions, bad or
good, therefore associated with karma); and consciousness.
The combination of all of these aggregates, which are
complex but lacking of a ‘‘self’’ (since none of these
skandha can exist independently), gives place to life in its
various forms. This corresponded to the concept that I had
explained to them, of life as an integrated system and, more
in general, to the concept of emergence (though Buddhism
does not use this term).
The subject I talked about later, still based on Maturana
and Varela’s autopoiesis theory, was that of the interaction
between the living being and its environment. Chilean
authors use the term cognition to define this interaction. I
told them that the authors, with this term, mean that every
species of living being interacts with the environment in a
specific way, determined by the personal sensorial appa-
ratus developed during evolution.
In life, we are always dealing with a cognitive interac-
tion, and this determines a profound cohesion between the
world of the living and the external environment, and this
is what allows the life of the organism itself. The bacterium
is then a cognitive being, but be careful, I added right
away, ‘cognitive’ does not necessarily mean being equip-
ped with mind or consciousness. It only means that the
internal organization of the living organism specifically
recognizes its own environment. A few examples are water
to a fish, leaves to a caterpillar, and webs to a spider… But,
the organism is not aware of what it is doing.
After this last sentence, I immediately noticed how the
faces that had followed me with understanding and interest,
started to darken. And I knew why. It was the point about
the absence of sentience in something which I had defined
as living. I decided to postpone this subject until the next
lesson, where we would speak in detail about single-celled
organisms and their cognitive problems.
After the first 2 days, I left my rooming accommodation
that had been provided by the monastery, a very dismal
room at the top of the hill, only accessible by a muddy path.
Instead, I elected to stay at one of the best hotels in Thim-
phu, the Druk Hotel. The main reason I chose to relocate
was the food. All that the nuns ate was rice: a bowl of rice
for breakfast, a bigger bowl of rice for lunch, and another for
dinner. The nuns ate this plain rice (with the exception of
certain religious holidays) every day, year after year. I
started to grow concerned about their metabolisms, also
because their hygienic-living conditions were not too great.
At the Druk Hotel, I ate decently. At the front of the
Hotel, there was a well-known cafe and bookshop, called
Ambient Cafe, where I was able to drink a wonderful
Italian espresso and borrow their books. I also had the
pleasure of meeting some really interesting people,
including Miguel, a Spanish economist who was working
in Bhutan for an international NGO association. The
Hotel’s location was right in the middle of Thimphu, a city
without traffic lights, and only one active street, called
Norzim Lam. Before dinner, a large group of people walk
along Norzim Lam. One can see many elderly people and a
good portion of young people wearing the monk-like robes
and white cuffs on their forearms.
The girls were still wearing long traditional skirts and
dresses. I never saw a single mini-skirt around all of
Bhutan. Coming from places like Bangkok and Shanghai,
my two previous travel destinations, this really caught my
eye. In a certain way, it was refreshing. I calculated that
almost half the young people, including the girls, dressed in
blue jeans, and the other half in traditional dress. Some of
the regulars at the Ambient Cafe told me that only 5 years
ago, blue jeans would not have been seen on the street.
Actually, they were prohibited. And, they added that in
another 5 years, traditional clothing will not be seen on
these streets. This is social evolution making its course.
After each lesson, I returned to the Hotel by car, and every
morning they came to pick me up. The journey back to the
monastery took almost an hour each way. Still, this was far
better than 3 weeks of boiled rice. The road to Thimphu
monastery, paved with asphalt, was one of the few roads in
excellent condition. The traffic problem involved cows.
They were always standing just beyond spontaneous corners,
grazing peacefully on the street. Although cows had learned
to graze at the edge of the street, once in a while a cow or two
would forget Fig. 3. The other problem was the dogs. In
Buddhist Bhutan, it is illegal to kill an animal. So, the stray
dogs, though generally good-natured, reproduce at a dra-
matic rate. So much, in fact, that it is a national problem.
There is an anecdote I have heard on this subject from
Miguel. Years ago, Indian mercenary soldiers were hired to
shoot and kill the stray dogs. When the Buddhist population
rose, they created kennels where people brought the animals
food. The result was an enormous increase in the city’s
canine population. And still now the cities are invaded by
small armies of these beasts. By day, they quietly sleep, and
by night, they awaken, filling the streets with uncontrollable
barking. I had to change a few times room in the Hotels, just
to find a quiet place to sleep at night.
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In regard to the Buddhist population that cannot kill
animals, I would like to add a hypocritically flavored
detail—again an information coming from Miguel. The
Bhutanese, like most Tibetans, love to eat meat (although,
since they left Tibet where nomads living in high altitude
depended on a meat diet, almost all Tibetan monasteries in
India and Nepal have stopped cooking meat in their
kitchen). Unable to kill the cows, what do they do? They
ship the cows to India, where the animals are killed and
sent back, smashed to pieces, naturally in non-refrigerated
wagons.
I continued the classes discussing unicellular organisms,
which were the ones that had populated our land for the
first two billion years. I had to repeat, knowing that prob-
lems would be born, that these microbes, in terms of
modern science, were living, and equipped with cognitive
function. However, they did not have minds, so they had no
conscious intention.
The reaction was a powerful wave of disapproval. No, I
was told, this makes no sense: if something is alive, that
‘something’ has to have a kind of sentience. The microbes
look for food, right? So they must have intention, which, in
turn, assumes conscience, however primitive it night be.
No, I replied. Intention is first, above all else, something
in the mind of the observer. Can one say that the watch has
the intention to mark the time? The intention is in the mind
of the watchmaker, not the clock. I added an imaginary
example of a robot, whose function is to serve tea at 5
o’clock every day. Can one say that a robot has the
intention of bringing the tea? And, that he has a mind and
conscience? The robot obeys a blind mechanical program.
Likewise, a bacterium, instead of a mechanical program
has a blind genetic program.
No, the nuns, my students, were not convinced in the
least. Sure, the robot does not have awareness of intention.
But, the robot is not alive and the example is not valid, one
of the nuns responded. At this point, the whole group was
growing highly argumentative. Their monastic robes did
not keep them from speaking up. What is alive must have a
mind and a sentience, they continuously repeated back to
me.
‘‘What then, is the criterion of life for you?—I asked-
Tell me, who is capable of sentience? And what is the
criterion for which there is sentience? —Ah, that there is
life? No, you see-I concluded––this is a redundant oxy-
moron, a tautology…’’
I tried in vain to continue on this line, explaining the
concept of a tautology, something that does not pertain to
the logic of science. On the subject of the robot and
microbes, I attempted to explain the difference of science’s
role between teleology and teleonomy.
There was no way. I renounced the challenge to con-
vince them. In the end, my goal was not to convince them
on the teachings of our science, but to inform them. And I
reflected on the fact that Buddhism is not born as a sci-
entific and objective examination of the outside world, but
is born from inner experience. While it is a very rigorous
and detailed philosophical system, it does not care to look
directly for the objective criteria in terms of our science.
Also there are objective reasons for the difference with
science: Buddhism was born in a time when people did not
know about microbes.
I had a long discussion about this with Khyentse Rinp-
oche during tea hour. When I asked him if he considered
trees to be living, he responded that this type of life is not
considered to have sentience in classical Buddhism (I
learned later that not all Lamas agree with him).
I reminded him about the Dalai Lama’s famous quote,
which says that if science makes a discovery that is abso-
lutely certain you have to accept it, even if it contradicts
the scriptures. Yes, I agree, Rinpoche said, this is okay.
However, he pointed out that classic Buddhism, rather than
distinguishing between living and nonliving, distinguishes
between sentient and non-sentient beings. Plants are living,
but do not have consciousness. As a consequence they are
not sentient. I asked them to give me a scientific definition
of the term sentient, as opposed to non-sentient, but this
short discussion did not give me any additional clear
understanding.
That day, I continued with a lesson on the world of cells,
showing (after requesting the administration’s permission)
the egg cells of a woman being fertilized by sperm to form
an embryo, a fetus, and eventually a child Fig. 4. I
chronicled the various stages of pregnancy prior to
delivery.
The nuns followed this with open eyes. When the video
showed woman giving birth, one could see the emotion on
their faces. Many of them were smiling happily. There
were then a lot of questions regarding conception, also
Fig. 3 People in the main street of Thimphu
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questions which, for western young people, would be of
incredible naivety. But this was to be expected. I answered
with great patience and commitment, and I thought to have
done a good job. However, at the end of the class, one of
the nuns approached me with an intense face, and asked:
‘‘Yes, but tell me, how is really a baby born?’’
We continued with egg cells and birth, touching then on
the problem of cloning. The controversy came following
the showing of Dolly’s cloning. I asked my students to tell
me who the true mother of Dolly was: the sheep who had
given birth, or the one who had provided the egg. The
discussion flared up even more when I told them the story
about the Italian doctor who, with similar techniques, had
allowed a mother in her sixties to have a baby, using a
young mother as a surrogate. I asked them to write their
opinions. In this situation, who is the real mother? And,
was my group of students in favor of the mother who
simply wants a child, or should such experiments be ban-
ned? This sparked thoughts that some of them later read
aloud in the classroom.
As expected, there was no agreement on any of these
issues among the group. But, it was nice to see them so
passionate in the discussion. During this lesson, I was able
to learn some of their incredibly difficult names, such as
Ugyen Chokys, Karma Tashi Wangmo, Passang Gyaelmo,
Namgay Tshering Yangdron, Konchock Drolma Checkers,
Karma Tashi Wangmo, Passang Gyelmo, Namgay Tsher-
ing Yangdon, and Kuenchock Drolma. I will never be able
to keep them straight.
Having spoken about what life really is, I faced the next
question: what is death in the field of science? I began by
saying that all forms of life and non-life on earth are cre-
ated by atoms from a structural point of view. But, that on
earth, there are no new atoms (apart from a little stardust
that comes from the cosmos). Therefore, all existing things
are composed of atoms, molecules, and atomic groupings
that have already been used thousands and thousands of
times for different things before. Death results in a
continuous recycling of molecules. I added that I could
have atoms in me that belonged to some dinosaur from a
hundred million years ago, and that the nun sitting in front
of me may have atoms or molecules in her body that
belonged to Marilyn Monroe…Death is, therefore, a prerequisite of life itself. A pre-
sence of molecular material is necessary to create new
forms of life. As an exercise, we followed the imaginary
path of a molecule belonging to a banana leaf, grown in
India a million years ago. A bird eats the leaf, and then flies
very far. A hunter eats the bird, and then dies at war in
China, etc. The original molecule ends up in a Chinese tree.
Every single atom in our body has a long, adventurous
history. Every human being is comprised of billions of
atoms. I reminded my students of the famous new age
phrase, We are all ‘‘stardust.’’ This is correct, because these
atoms are the same atoms that were formed primordially.
All this aligned with their basic concept of imperma-
nence, Anicca, in Pali, or Anytia in Sanskrit, one of the
fundamental aspects of classic Buddhism, which says
‘Nothing is eternal, everything that is born must die; this
impermanence even concerns the arising of new phenom-
ena, as they were not there before their appearance—and
then they go, forever…’. And this goes hand in hand with
the other fundamental concept of Anatta, in Pali, or
Anatman, in Sanskrit, which refers to the notion of non-
self, or better the illusion of an existing ‘‘self’’, whereas all
things perceived by the senses (including thoughts) are not
really ‘‘I’’ or ‘‘mine’’—and for this reason one should not
cling to them.
This lesson was the source of a long discussion during
tea hour with Khyentse Rinpoche. In Fig. 5, second to the
left, you see the Khenpo (Khenpo is an equivalent to a
Ph.D. in Buddhist philosophy), the director of the monas-
tery and feared by the nuns. The man on first right is the
elderly octogenarian, Changdzo Ngodrup (he also goes by
Fig. 4 The nuns working on their notes
Fig. 5 The tea break after the afternoon class
392 Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei (2013) 24:387–400
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other names, which is common in this country). Ngodrup
now acts as the treasurer for the nunnery, and is famous
for having built many monasteries in Tibet and Bhutan.
His eyes were a deep, dark blue, translucent, and very
young. He observed everything around him constantly,
moving his gaze back and forth. We became great friends,
also because I gave him a big bar of Toblerone Swiss
chocolate.
The Rinpoche began to speak, looking up from his
colored teacup,
‘‘In this way, modern science accepts reincarnation. In
fact, you said that you can accept the idea that a few
million years ago, you were a dinosaur, then a stone, then a
fish.’’
‘‘No,’’ I hastened to answer. ‘‘I did not say that ‘‘I’’ was
never a dinosaur or a fish, but some of my present atoms
and molecules were part of these animals. In science, with
the death of a man, one loses every trace of individuality.
Nothing remains except the inanimate molecules, which
are fragmented and possibly reused in different bodies. In
your concept of reincarnation, however, there is the
memory of human existence. There remains a trace of
individuality of the person who dies. No, traditional sci-
ence does not accept this.’’
We continued to talk about this, and the Rinpoche
looked at me, shaking his head (I think he pitied me a bit. I
believe to know what he was thinking: a scientist who
looked brilliant, but who does not understand the most
important things of universal reality, the basic principle of
reincarnation). So, I gave him a nasty question, ‘‘You,
Khyentse Rinpoche, you’re the reincarnation of Dilgo
Rinpoche. But in Buddhism there is no concept of ‘I’,
much less a sense of self. If there is no self, who is actually
reincarnated?’’
To my surprise, Khyentse Rinpoche did not reply
quickly to my question. He turned to Khenpo, leaving him
to answer. There was a short discussion, where the main
point, if I understood it well, was, that reincarnation should
be seen as a dynamic stream of experience, devoid of a
unitary, autonomous self-entity. Like matter, according to
Buddhism, consciousness is a primary phenomenon that
has no beginning and no end. When I asked for more light
on that, expressing my doubt and confusion, the old
Changdzo Ngodrup could not contain a warm, infectious
laugh.
Then, Khyentse Rinpoche asked me what I thought
about the many cases of children who remember past lives.
I replied that I believed children are sincere, but perhaps
there are alternative explanations to reincarnation. Khy-
entse Rinpoche’ insisted that science refused to accept
indisputable facts, all those science cannot explain. I
answered that for myself, I, as a scientist, have a drawer in
my brain with an archive of all the things that I cannot
scientifically explain. I told them it is already full and
another laugh came from Changdzo Ngodrup.
It is well known that science and Buddhism do not agree
with the question of reincarnation. I remember countless
discussions on this issue in Dharamsala, at the Mind and
Life conferences. However, to finish the tea in harmony
with them, I quoted a phrase by the Dalai Lama,
‘‘If science finds something that is non-existent, we must
accept that this thing does not exist. However, if science
cannot find the answer to something, does not mean that
such a thing does not exist’’.
Such is reincarnation, the Rinpoche immediately added,
nodding his head.
‘‘Tashie Delek’’…’’Tashie Delek’’—and so the day was
over in friendship.
Over the weekend, I was relatively free and made use of
my time to take a walk around the city. In every store,
office and home, there were always two effigies: one of
Buddha and one of the young royal couple. And then when,
later on, I stopped by the most rugged and poor temples, at
every temple, close to the Buddha, there was a colored
photo of the king and queen. Initially, I thought it was an
empty ritual, an old routine. I had to change my mind
though. They did it with conviction, with faith, with love.
I was surprised to see such a love and trust for the king
and queen coming from the merchants, other shopkeepers,
barbers, and the guardians of the temples. These people
talked genuinely with affection about their king and queen,
which was surprising to my cynical Italian ears. It was like
this for the religious effigies too. I remember the monks
who sat motionless and in absolute silence for 10 min
before a statue of the Buddha they had not seen before,
exhibiting a sincerity that no longer exists in our world.
I remember one time at the Ambient Cafe in Thimphu,
when two young people sitting next to my table began to
smile to me and say hello. This made me a little nervous
and guarded. Who knows what they wanted—something
from the West? I had to be ashamed of my own thoughts,
when I realized that they did not want anything. They were
just kind, smiling at me out of pure friendship.
On the weekends, my monk friends organized meetings
with political figures. Here I was able to see how close the
relationship between the government and the Buddhist
monastic order is. A very important Lama, with an
impossible name and impeccable English, even scheduled a
meeting for me with the Prime Minister (whom he called
directly by phone from my Hotel). The appointment was
canceled because the Prime Minister had to leave abruptly
for Iraq.
Again thanks to a call made by the Rinpoche, I was
instead greeted by the Minister of the Supreme Court of
Justice, Lyonpo Sonam Tobgye. Tobgye was one of the
signers of the Constitution (the preceding king, father of
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123
the current young king, and much beloved by the people,
took the initiative to transform the absolute monarchy into
a democracy with a constitutional monarchy, in turn
attracting the benevolence of the citizens even more).
Lyonpo Sonam Tobgye was a monk for many years
(therefore, well-educated in Buddhist studies) before
embarking on a political career. When I told him in passing
that Buddha, for me, had perhaps no big understanding for
women (by having only reluctantly allowed them to par-
ticipate in the monastic life), the minister immediately
reeled off a series of particular examples from Buddhist
literature that showed instead how highly Buddha did
consider women.
Then we talked about justice. I asked about murder in
Bhutan. He could not remember the last time it had hap-
pened. I asked about drugs. His response: an unknown
practice. Well, yes,—then added after a short pause—it is
true, the hashik began to peep among the young, only in the
capital. Prostitution? You will not find a prostitute on the
streets. No, prostitution was not illegal, but the exploitation
of prostitution was, and was severely punished. I then
asked: How can one handle the Buddhist concept of
‘‘compassion’’ with the prisoners? The prisons of Bhutan—
he said—are the most human of the world, but, my dear, he
added, criminals are criminals and should be in jail. Okay?
I asked if it was true that the sale of tobacco was a crime
punishable by 3–5 years in prison, as I had read on some
government signs at the entrance of some regional roads.
He replied that yes, of course, it is a punishable crime, just
as for the trafficking of other drugs. I tried to argue that it is
not quite the same thing, but not convincingly, as I knew
too well the well-known arguments, that over 6 million
people die yearly in the world due to the use of tobacco,
which is addictive. The minister talked a little more about
that, adding that spending money for tobacco and then to
cure patients with lung cancer is a general waste, and
instead their GNH program emphasized that people do not
smoke and remain healthy.
He referred me to a nice talk given on the subject by the
prime minister and gave me for that a long link:
http://gpiatlantic.org/bhutan/docs/hpm_bhutans_national_
accounts.doc
Changing the subject, I asked him why they had these
restrictions in Bhutan, which forbid tourists to travel from
Paro to Thimphu, or generally inside Bhutan without
having obtained a road permit from the police (no taxi
would take you to another city without seeing the police
permit prior). He said it was a measure taken to protect
their cultural heritage. They did not want tourists with
sleeping bags, forming colonies as in the new age. This is
also why—he added—the stay in Bhutan costs tourists $
200 a day, but that price is all inclusive, from the domestic
transport to the Hotel. Next, I asked about poverty
problems in Bhutan: how many people are living below the
poverty line? He replied, no, there are practically none,
there are some farmers who are poor, and added that the
national banks, by regulation, must give 10 % of their
portfolio to the poorest farmers. I asked if this is a law. No,
it is a rule, not a law, the minister pointed out. I tried to get
him to explain the difference, but I could not understand it.
The interview with Karma Tshering, director of the
Royal Institute of Management, was also interesting. We
talked about education the whole time. School is obligatory
in Bhutan and it is free at all levels (see http://gpiatlantic.
org/bhutan/docs/hpm_bhutans_national_accounts.doc).
However, he added that in the near future they really
should institute a tax. The financial situation is growing
much too grave for the government. For young people, an
obligatory military service does not exist; it is only vol-
unteer-based.
Yes, it is true, English is taught in almost all the secondary
schools. With English as the default language at schools, -I
asked- don’t you fear losing your cultural identity? No, he
said, they do not. He told me that it is necessary for Bhutan,
which was so isolated for so many centuries, to begin talking
with the rest of the world; for that, nowadays you need
English. I asked about student-organized movements and
rebellions. I had to explain what that is. No, he told me, none
of that. I asked him if he knew what trade unions are, those in
defense of workers. And whether they had that? No, he did
not know about trade unions. What about strikes? His
response: They do not exist. I changed the subject, and told
him that I had not seen a science-oriented college in the entire
district of Thimphu. It is true, he answered, telling me to
discuss this with the prime minister. He said that the priority
now is economics and asked me to send to Bhutan European
or American professors of economics—they had now
exchange programs at all levels. About the economic situa-
tion, he added that they have built dozens and dozens of
Hotels to promote tourism. Later, traveling to Bhutan, I
realized it was true; there were many decent hotels. But,
almost all of them were empty, at least in that period of
September.
After talking about cells and their ability to reproduce,
the time arrived to explain the mechanisms of reproduction
at the molecular level, introducing DNA. We began with
the famous four bases: thymine, adenine, guanine, cyto-
sine, and then uracil. I pointed at their structural formulas.
And then I soon realized that this was lesson was not
going well, simply because they lacked the notion of
molecule. A molecule? What is really a molecule? I had
not considered that there could be an audience without an
understanding of this concept. The structural formulas that
I projected had to be for them as they were for me the
Chinese ideograms, things to look at without understanding
their meaning.
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It went better as soon as the DNA double helix came
into the picture: this for them was no longer a molecule, but
an icon. Perhaps the double helix was an archetype that
also belonged to their world.
An article of semi-philosophical character came to mind
that I had conceived as a young man, where I had written
against the prevailing habit of transforming biochemistry
into colored cartoons. At some point, I had written, the
properties of DNA will be impoverished, forgotten, being
transformed into colorful figurines.
However, the nuns liked these figurines. On their
basis, they also followed the mechanism of semi-
conservative DNA replication and understood what a
gene is. They also understood with the help of the col-
ored figurines how a gene encodes for a protein. I gave
the genetic code for granted, without telling them how
we got there, and with that knowledge, they managed to
make some simple exercise. For example, they could
understand the genetic basis of sickle cell anemia, once
they had been told that the pathological hemoglobin had
an error, a non-polar valine instead of glutamic acid in a
b chain.
Then they asked questions, which were quite different
than those usually posed by our students. For example
‘‘Why does DNA replicate? How does it decide to do
this?’’
I took advantage of this kind of question to introduce
them to a few concepts of system biology. I explained to
them that it was not the DNA-gene who ‘‘decided’’ to
replicate, or to encode a protein. The message, the order,
was given by the whole living organism in need. Hemo-
globin is a great example of this. It is the entire body that
feels the need to create more hemoglobin. Through a
complex cascade of ions, hormones, and various activators,
all produced by the entire living system, the message
finally arrives to the DNA in the form of activating mol-
ecules. The DNA comes into action only after this acti-
vation, having received the signal to encode for the protein.
The nuns were following this anti-reductionist speech quite
well. In fact, the systemic view was quite agreeable with
their Buddhist concept of ‘‘co-dependent arising’’: This
depends on that, one from the other, a continuous chain and
multi-dimensional relations of cause and effect: in fact,
without a localized cause.
At tea hour, Khyentse Rinpoche asked once more, ‘‘If
the mechanism of DNA is so perfect, why do we age and
die?’’ I tried to tell them something about telomerase, but
realized that it was too difficult. I then took refuge in the
notion of Buddhist impermanence: all things which are
born are destined to die. Of course, I added, this includes
DNA. DNA, in fact, grows old and decays, like all other
thing, but with a particular mechanism of molecular biol-
ogy. And death is important to life, because the death of the
living is the cause of other organisms’ arising lives. Birth
takes place because of death.
The concept of ‘why one dies’ was one of the Rinp-
oche’s constant questions. He had several issues that
troubled and intrigued him. Another of his constant ques-
tions was, if it was possible to transplant a human brain
into a robot, and what would be the consequences? Another
one was, if mankind, thanks to biological evolution, be
transformed into completely developed spiritual beings?
The interview that I was waiting for was with Dasho
Karma Ura, the president of the Center of Bhutan Studies and
the person directly responsible for the GNH, the Gross
National Happiness program. The Gross National Happiness
is a program of national happiness famously produced and
organized by the government of Bhutan. I had read on
economists’ articles on this subject, mostly written by
Americans, and the opinions were completely different,
depending on the political beliefs of the authors. There was a
mixed batch of praise from the intellectual and liberal, and
negative reviews by conservative Republicans, for whom the
GNH program was too socialistically and new age flavored.
Karma Ura is the dry type, concise, completely dedi-
cated to his work and to the country. He told me from the
start, that the main purpose is to clarify what can make the
citizens happy, and then to implement it. The statistics of
Dasho Karma Ura works like this: every three years there is
a national survey that affects 1 % of the population, about
seven thousand people are chosen at random, and it is
always respects the men and women equally, representing
both 50/50
Each person is subjected to about 5 h of interview, with
228 questions. He told me that there are nine areas of
questions (for example, environment, governance, preser-
vation of cultural heritage, mental balance…) and each
area covers nine factors of principle issues. The questions
try to shed light on as much detail as possible. For example,
there are 60 categories that concern the use of the free time
after work. Karma Ura added that the use of free time is
one of the main bases of individual happiness.
Many of the questions focus on the relationships in the
family, which is still considered a major factor for the
individual’s well-being. One’s circle of friends is also
considered very important, especially for women who work
at home. The survey also asked, on several occasions,
about communal life, and they use the parameter ‘‘com-
munity vitality indicator’’ as one of the most important.
Another thing taken very seriously in the country, under-
standably so, is religious meditation and prayer, seen as the
easiest and most effective way to eliminate negative
emotions. There were so many questions about when and
how much, and on what occasion, people meditate or pray.
I asked if money is considered important. Yes, was the
answer of Karma Ura, but only if you earn below a certain
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value (two thousand dollars per month), a salary above is
not considered relevant. Are there difficulties in the sta-
tistical evaluation? He said that it was indeed a very dif-
ficult task, incredibly long and complex, and added that
they have some American specialists on statistics that help.
He said that this is available to read online at www.
bhutanstudies.org.bt, or www.grossnationalhappiness.com.
I asked, ‘‘What is the real problem for the GNH
program?’’
Karma Ura, starting to warm up a bit, replied, ‘‘The
problem is the government: once we present the results of our
statistical analysis, requesting, say, more sports fields or
nurseries in the East of the country, the government should
act. But all falls into the hands of classic bureaucracy, the
ministries, you understand? Even if moving, they move
slowly’’. He said this with open annoyance and continued,
‘‘The government, in short, goes proudly in the international
arena with this flagship, the GNH, but then often does not
listen and does not implement what we say. There are
alternative sources of funding? I asked. No, was the reply. In
Bhutan, 95 % of all the assets are government-related, with
money coming almost entirely from India in exchange for
hydroelectric power, the water falls of Himalaya.’’
‘‘Yes, they want to do more dams, and this will bring
about an ecological disaster,’’ Miguel, the Spanish inter-
national commissioner stationed in Bhutan, had told me a
few days earlier. He added that if ‘‘global warming’’ con-
tinued to increase at this rate, the melting of glaciers
threatened to eventually wash away all of Bhutan, given its
location on the flanks of the Himalayas. I had read that
dams in Bhutan are actually built considering a series of
ecological constrains, let us hope that this is true.
It was time to introduce Darwinism and biological evo-
lution. The nuns were very attentive. I started introducing the
society of the Victorian time in England, so conservative and
so identified with the Christian biblical tradition. Then I
summarized the first fundamental teaching of Darwin: that
species are not immutable, nor ordered and fixed perma-
nently, as the Bible and the literal Christian traditions wan-
ted, but change with time. This was not difficult for the nuns
to accept. Buddhism and practicing Buddhists do not have
the concept of creation. They do believe in impermanence,
that nothing is fixed and constant.
In fact, all this new material I presented to them was in
harmony with their general beliefs, in that every single
thing derives from the past and is the foundation of the
future. The concept that existence is based on a continuous
transformation is actually present in all the Eastern reli-
gions and philosophies. The best known case is that of the
Chinese Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tse, dating back
2,500 years ago, (and commented about in great detail by
CG Jung in the fifties). This concept is also present in
ancient Greek philosophy. We all remember the Heraclitus’
panta rei (interestingly, around the same historical period
of Lao Tse) a concept which disappeared upon the advent
of Christianity and the doctrine of divine creation.
Yes, but….A big but. It came out in the short discussion
that followed. It is so, that in Buddhism when you consider
the flow of time, and then evolution in particular, you
cannot forget the notion of karma.
Karma, which literally means ‘‘action’’, and is accom-
plished either physically or mentally, is a law of causality
for all sentient beings’ moral actions. You accumulate
karma, negative and/or positive, during your life, but your
life is determined by that karmic experience of previous
lives. It then goes on from generation to generation,
according to the teachings of reincarnation. A certain
number of positive actions will prove profitable in future
lives, and the contrary, negative thoughts and actions will
have harmful consequences on awaiting reincarnations.
They say in Buddhism that our current happiness and
unhappiness are both the results of past actions, and also of
previous lives.
This is the summary of questions and objection to my
discourse on evolution. Something, very important for
them, was missing.
I had to respond with the truth. The science that I knew
could not include the concept of reincarnation, and as a
result, the concept of karma was foreign. The category of
actions or thoughts, positive or negative for us is part of
ethics and morality. These can, in fact, be seen as having a
historical component, and if you want, also evolutionary.
But, not in the karmic sense described by Buddhism.
They took note of my words without particular joy.
I continued my lesson by reminding them that, accord-
ing to classic Darwinism, and therefore to modern science,
all living beings derive from an initial population of
primitive bacteria, the single-celled organisms which we
had discussed a few days prior. In order to explain such an
evolution, I had to introduce the concept of natural
selection.
I started this part explaining first that all individuals of a
given species are not genetically identical, but there is a
statistical variability. It is because of this variability that
some individuals were better suited to accept some random
changes of the environment. These best fit individuals
could reproduce better, and later generations were enriched
of their kind. This, I explained, was natural selection: the
consolidation of a successful sub-group, the best fit, the
best adapted. In this way, after a long, long time, the arrival
of species’ transformation takes place, thus creating a
whole new species. In this way, you can go from simpler
organisms to more complex ones.
Questions? It took a while for the first ones, and then they
flared. I noticed that the question of Why always came up for
them. Why is adaptation necessary to new environmental
396 Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei (2013) 24:387–400
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conditions? What is it that motivates the arising of new
species? What is it that motivates the changes towards a
greater biological complexity?
Again I insisted on the concept that Darwinism is not a
mind-based motivation to change. It is just natural selec-
tion, implemented due to interactions between pre-existing
structures and new environmental situations. In effect, I
added, the very term of natural selection is not of imme-
diate understanding. It is not a clear term, and Darwin
himself had problems with this terminology. In fact, there
is no agent that operates selection-as in the case of the
farmer who operates a breeding. The evolutionary changes
simply come as they correspond to a balance between the
internal organization of the organism and the stress created
by the new environment.
Yes, they kept interrupting, but what is the motivation for
those changes? And I had to repeat time and time again that
these changes were not taking place due to the intention or
consciousness of somebody, but that it was, in fact, a
mechanism of ‘‘natural’’ mechanical biology, as we had
discussed when we talked about autopoiesis and cognition.
The body is cognitive and recognizes its environment. It
knows what to select in order to improve, but not because it is
aware of what is doing. The body’s awareness to change is
only attributed to blind molecular interaction mechanisms.
No, this is not too convincing, was their reply, and some of
the more daring students even shook their heads. I realized
that to them, motivation was always present no matter what,
and it was given by the mind and consciousness of the living
organism itself. I knew that on this specific topic, there was
not much possibility of an agreement.
I had to specify again that my task was not to convince
them to accept scientific statements, but only to inform
them on where science is now. Okay? Okay.
The next bold step was to explain to them the concept of
contingency in biological evolution. I first explained the
position of the absolute determinism, according to life on
earth, and the origin of mankind, both viewed by the
determinists as fixed routes. I mentioned Christian de Duve
as one of the most important signatures for absolute
determinism, often referred to as the gospel of inevitability.
After explaining this, I moved onto the opposite position,
based on the theory of contingency, supported by Stephen
Jay Gould along with the well-known Ernst Mayr. According
to them, all that exists in nature could have been very dif-
ferent, or even non-existent for that matter. Everything
depends on factors of local contingency, parameters inde-
pendent of one another, such as temperature, pressure, con-
centration, acidity, salinity. These are all values that are
formed quite accidentally, depending on completely unpre-
dictable environmental conditions. Depending upon a given
set of such parameters, something may take place in a way, or
in another, or not take place at all…
Then I provided a first easy example: an asteroid that
fell on earth sixty million years ago destroyed the dinosaurs
that had dominated life on earth for a hundred million
years, in turn permitting the development of small mam-
mals, thus allowing the creation of man. Here, if the
asteroid had only passed even closely by, the dinosaurs
would probably still be on earth today, and the creation of
man would never have occurred.
All of this visibly surprised my students. So, I gave them
a less trivial example: the origin of oxygen in the primor-
dial times on earth was due to bacteria, to a bacterial
random mutation that invented the toxic oxygen (toxic for
that old time). So this was a random event, in the sense that
it might not have even occurred. Its appearance was due to
a particular configuration of cellular chemistry that already
existed in that colony of bacteria, plus the particular
environmental conditions. Without this, none of it would
have happened.
We discussed the difference between ‘‘case’’ and
‘‘contingency’’ a bit, and the relation between contingency
and determinism. It was a difficult topic to discuss. The
nuns understood, however, the essential point: if this
mutation had not taken place, the earth would not have had
oxygen and the subsequent synthesis of chlorophyll. Then,
there would be no plants on Earth, only those primitive
bacteria. Having arrived at this topic, I added that, on the
basis of the theory of contingency, the majority of modern
evolutionary scientists agree that human life on earth could
have ceased to exist.
At this point, I stopped to study the faces of the nuns.
They were not happy faces. I asked them to reflect and
write down what they thought on their notebooks, then
compare it to their Buddhist teachings. I turned in partic-
ular to two of my most attentive students, who were now
looking at me frowning, Sonam Zangmo and Ugyen
Drolma. I then looked to Khyentse Rinpoche, and the
Director Khenpo, and even in the blue eyes of my old
friend Changdzo Ngodrup I did not discover much
happiness….
We discussed these concepts again at tea time. There
seemed to be a lot of tension, almost a sense of depression
among the older monks. Khyentse Rinpoche then broke the
silence, staring at me, and said something like this, ‘‘Look,
professor, everything that exists in this world is here for a
reason. There is nothing superfluous.’’
I replied kindly, ‘‘I understand, you say that tree is there
because of a seed, and the seed was there because of a
farmer. Everything is determined by a chain of events;
everything depends on something else. Agreed, it has
happened like this. But you cannot accept the idea that the
tree might never have been there?’’
The Rinpoche did not answer me directly, and the other
Lama avoided the question. However, they began to talk
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123
animatedly among themselves, then begun to laugh, as they
so often do, and the heavy climate turned into a lively and
friendly atmosphere once again.
I was reminded of an experience I had at a conference
on the origin of life some years ago, when, with the help of
a student, I did a series of interviews with a number of
colleagues on the question: do you agree with the princi-
ples of contingency in evolution? Almost all responded
yes, with conviction. Then, we asked the following ques-
tion: ‘‘So, do you also agree on the fact that mankind could
have never existed?’’ The answer of my science colleagues
was here always evasive.
On a Friday when class was canceled (the Rinpoche had
a ceremony to attend), Khenpo, the director of the mon-
astery, and another Khenpo who had come from Shechen
monastery in Nepal, Shelnang, who has been participating
for several years in the ‘‘Science for monks’’ program
organized in India under the inspiration of the Dalai Lama,
took me to drive around the neighborhood of Thimphu. We
first visited a couple of Dzong, distinctive buildings across
the country, comparable to our medieval castles (large,
fortified complexes where the lord and his court lived,
capable of accommodating hundreds of people). Now the
Dzong in Bhutan are all in use, half for Buddhist religious
institutions, the other half for government institutions. But
the two apparently do not interfere with each other.
My friends kept driving on the paved roads, and there is
a beautiful road which leads to Paro from Thimphu, the
two major cities of Bhutan. This is not the case for the
other roads, especially those leading to the east of the
country. They are often unpaved, narrow, and occasionally
dangerous. The danger does not come from traffic (which is
calm, and drivers are respectful), but from continuous
landslides and stone that fall from above.
Roads are sunken in the flanks of the Himalayan
mountains, there are no safety nets. Car trips in the country,
according to Bhutanese business people who travel by car,
are dangerous. They said this with a smile, but there was
always a thread of genuine concern in their voices. Later on
in the week, I had to experience terrible traffic, stopped for
3 or 4 h, due to huge rocks falling as a result of continuous
rainfall. Then came a bulldozer and we had to wait for the
road to be restored. The drivers waited with admirable
patience. The car of my Bhutanese guide, the monk Boga
(which means ‘‘goat’’, with the meaning of ‘‘fat’’) was
swept away by a lengthy avalanche of dirt, which destroyed
the ravine below. Boga jumped out in time and was saved
by a miracle, is now coping with an injury to his foot. He
had invited me to go with him that day in the car—luckily,
I had declined.
This is perhaps the point to anticipate something of the
long trip with the guide and driver that the monks of the
monastery provided until end of my job, when my lessons
had finished. This was a long week in the car. The path is
not necessarily easy to reach when going to the most
beautiful temples in remote places.
Their Tower of Trongsa is admirable: a Buddhist
museum full of beautiful artifacts, including their magical
masks (one of the characteristics, and fixations, of Bhutan).
I was particularly impressed by their ‘‘Forbidden City’’ (it
is named the ‘‘Forbidden City’’ because until recently, the
entrance to tourist was rather restricted). It is located in a
small town called Punakha, comprised of beautiful temples
(see an example below) Fig. 6, characterized by dark-col-
ored wood, white lime, and sacred multicolored inlays.
Bhutan’s most famous monument, the Tiger Nest (Paro
Taksang), is in another part of the country near Paro. A
beautiful temple more than 3,000 meters tall, it can be
reached by a steep path. The natives take a little over an
hour to climb it, the young and fit tourists can do it in a
couple of hours. For me, however, it was more than three
hours. I was not too well when I arrived: this simply as a
warning to those who, like me, have reached the seventies.
But, I’m glad I did. The ‘‘Why’’ can be understood when
looking at Fig. 7 with the author in foreground.
Fig. 6 Inside one of the temples in Punakha
Fig. 7 View of the famous tiger nest
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Let us go back to the classes. The lessons had come to
the last chapter. My idea was to end with the concept of
consciousness, the pinnacle of human evolution. But I
began with the tree of life with its three main kingdoms:
eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea. I insisted that all life
forms were derived from each other and, therefore, are
related to each other. Microbes, algae, fish, birds, animals
all, according to the Darwinian view, are one big living
family, joined together by the thin, invisible thread of time
and the evolutionary mechanism of genetic replication.
And all of these organisms, from microbes to the elephant,
from the sunflower to the trout living in lakes, have the
same molecules, and the same biochemical mechanisms. I
could see from their faces that the nuns were very fond of
this scenario of unity and universal network.
I continued telling them about the first mammals, then
their great diversity, and that man was still not on Earth six
million years ago. There was the common ancestry of
humans and chimpanzees, two families that are separated. I
told them that one of these two families fled to the
savannahs and flourished, eventually beginning to walk
upright. And here, I added in a provocative way, maybe
this group that walked upright hosted the emergence of the
noble characteristics of mankind. Hominids started to see
the sky, the movement of the sun and the stars; they
became afraid of lightning and tides and realized that there
were forces and powers above them, a realization that
perhaps gave way to self-conscience, and at the same time,
to spirituality. I apologized for not mentioning karma in all
this, adding that for science this addition was not necessary
and that they should try to answer that point on the possible
origin of spirituality and consciousness or at least think
about it.
I looked around, anticipating questions, concerns,
alternative views, but my students were all head down,
busily taking notes. The Lama all looked at me, fixed,
somehow hinting at me, but not interrupting me. I then
talked about Lucy, the most famous among these primitive
Australopithecus afarensis found in Ethiopia, only 4.5 feet
(1.5 meters) tall, with a low-developed brain.
I continued telling them about the appearance of the
descendants of Australopithecus in East Africa two million
of years ago, which was given the name Homo habilis, a
species which then evolved into Homo erectus, with a brain
a much more expanded.
This allowed me to tell them that our science generally
accepts the idea of a direct relationship between the brain,
intelligence, and mind. Here I paused again, asking the
question, which I left to float in the air: how do you see the
evolution of consciousness? Is this not also something that
evolves, perhaps in parallel to the evolution of the brain? I
added another more specific question: Did Lucy, at the
dawn of the origin of man, have awareness of being alive
and of her own identity?
I decided to make my students work with their note-
books on this question. For that, we took an half-hour
break. They, as usual, were divided into groups and talking
with each other in a low voice before writing.
In the second half of the lesson, it was time to introduce
the topic of consciousness. I said that a good part of
modern science distinguishes between at least two types of
consciousness, which define, according to the English
philosopher David Chalmers, an easy problem, and a dif-
ficult problem. That ‘‘easy’’ has to do with consciousness at
the level of cognition and perception, volition, choice,
moral or political, is always conscience of something, and
clearly has to do somehow with neural mechanisms of the
brain. Then there is the ‘‘difficult’’ problem, the aspect of
consciousness that has to do with personal experience,
subjectivity, the feeling of the color blue, the feeling of
fear, and to know that one knows. I told them that on this
second aspect of consciousness, there is still much con-
troversy among our philosophers and neurobiologists, but
in general it is assumed that this type of consciousness is an
emergent property of the brain itself. At some level of
neuronal complexity, in other words, the brain becomes
capable of reflecting on itself. Even such a subjective
consciousness would be something that has a material
basis, the brain itself, although the mechanism is still not
clear.
I already knew well that the Buddhists differentiate
between many types of consciousness, but also that they
accept that one level of conscience is cognitive, perceived
and intentional, based on the brain itself. However, typical
of Buddhism, and emphasized particularly in Tibetan
Buddhism, there is also the concept of ‘‘subtle conscious-
ness’’. Subtle consciousness, which they say does not have
a material base, is the main base of reincarnation. The
subtle consciousness is, therefore, not secondary to the
brain.
I felt that it was right to tell them that scientists of the
west cannot accept the notion of a subtle consciousness that
does not have a material basis. I remember countless dis-
cussions about this in the various meetings of the Mind and
Life in Dharamsala. And I knew it did not make much
sense to bring up all these arguments internal to science to
the nuns now. I also did not bring it up because it was not
clear even ‘‘with us’’: in fact, a number of philosophers,
phenomenologists, and neurobiological scientists do not
dislike the idea that consciousness is a primary phenome-
non (namely, not secondary to the brain, for example,
Michel Bitbol of CREA in Paris). I remember one of these
arguments, which goes like this: ‘‘Brain? Brain should be
primary? But in order to talk about brain, you need the
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consciousness that you have a brain. Also, consciousness is
primary…’’
It was time to conclude, and for that I took again the
argument of contingency, according to which human evo-
lution, including the evolution of the brain, could have
been very different if the environmental conditions, the
contingencies in general, would have been different. I
concluded that in general this was the equivalent to saying
that nature and evolution in particular, proceed without a
preconceived plan, and without a ‘why’.
Then, to really close the lessons, I invited Kyehntse
Rinpoche to speak.
He turned to the nuns with his strong, calm voice. He
seemed more like a wise old man than a nineteen-year-old
monk. I do not know, of course, what he said, but it was a
relatively long talk, with the nuns listening with the utmost
attention.
Then he gave me a long ‘‘thankyou’’ in English and
then motioned to one of the nuns. She began to recite a
poem, followed by a half-dozen other nuns, each reciting
a few lines. I understood that it was addressed to me, an
opening of familiarity and friendship that, as I was told
later, had the severe director Khenpo raising his eye-
brows. However, I could not understand a single word of
their English. I read the poem back at the Hotel, and found
myself quite moved.
POEM OF THE NUNS, THE LAST DAY
YOU HAVE TRAVELLED FROM FAR, ALL THE
WAY FROM ROME
TO TEACH US ABOUT THE BIG BANG, EVO-
LUTION AND CHROMOSOME
THROUGHOUT OUR WINDOWS NEW LIGHT
HAS COME
BRINGING NEW QUESTIONS, LIKE WHO IS
DOLLY’S MUM?
YOU EVEN TOLD US WE EVOLVED FROM
BACTERIA
REDUCING OUR EGO AND BRINGING MUCH
HYSTERIA
YOU EVEN AROSE THE CURIOSITY OF OUR
RINPOCHE
FOR YOUR THEORIES, HE WAS LEFT WON-
DERING OF WHAT TO SAY
AND THEN THERE IS THE QUESTION OF LIFE
AND MIND
AND IF CONSCIOUSNESS EXISTS BEYOND
MANKIND
AND AS THESE DEBATES WILL CONTINUE
INTO THE NIGHT
WE WISH YOU TO RETURN AND CONTINUE
THE FIGHT!
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