How can ancient Buddhist thinking couple with modern scientific thought. Join Radio Curious for a conversation with Preetha Ram director of the âEmory Tibet Science Initiativeâ and discover how Buddhist monks are learning concepts of the western scientific method.
Can modern scientific methods and meditative spiritual theory compliment each other? In the past it may have seemed that Buddhist beliefs in re-incarnation, dharma and karma might not entertain scientific areas like âneuroscienceâ or âevolutionâ but a new project endorsed by the Dalai Lama is doing just that. The Emory-Tibet Science Initiative launched In February 2006, at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, is a historic initiative whose goal is to develop and implement a comprehensive science education curriculum for Tibetan monastics. Dr. Preetha Ram, our guest in this edition of Radio Curious, is the co-director of The Emory-Tibet Science Initiative. In our conversation we discuss how Buddhist monks respond to the modern science curriculum, how the program came to be, and how Emory University professors have responded to working with the monks, whose personal background is so vastly different from the professorsâ academic backgrounds. We spoke with Dr. Preetha Ram from her home in Atlanta on July 27th 2009 and began by asking how she enables Buddhists to understand the latest scientific discoveries as suggested by the his holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The book recommended by Dr. Preetha Ram is âThe Universe In An Atomâ by The Dalai Lama