The origins of life at a Buddhist monastery in Bhutan

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

Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei (2013) 24:387–400

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

388 Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei (2013) 24:387–400

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http://www.mindandlife.org

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


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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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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


123

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


123

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http://www.bhutanstudies.org.bt

http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com

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


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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Documents

The origins of life at a Buddhist monastery in Bhutan