New Delhi – Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said on Wednesday, that Buddhist teaching should inculcate more of modern science even as controversy brews over the exiled leader’s proposed lecture at a neurosciences conference in the United States.
The Dalai Lama will later this month address some 30,000 scientists from around the world at the conference in Washington, where more than 17,000 neurology-related research presentations and over 50 symposia are expected.
But some 700 members of the Society for Neuroscience have raised objection to the address by the Dalai Lama, who will speak on the Buddhist theories on using mediation to generate positive emotions, saying a non-scientist cannot lecture them on such issues.
The Tibetan spiritual head and winner of Nobel Peace Prize has for long been seeking scientific proof of the benefits of meditation, including its ability to induce some degree of neural changes.
“Modern science is very advanced and it is very useful to learn from it. That’s why we have already introduced science in our monastery institutions, but so far, only to selected student in last few years which has interested our scholars. Now they have started appreciating it, though at the beginning they were skeptical,” the Dalai Lama told a seminar on Buddhist teaching in New Delhi.
The spiritual leader’s US visit has also sparked a diplomatic row with China opposing the trip of a “separatist with an intention to split national unity.”
The Dalai Lama is expected to meet US President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and key Congressional leaders during the high profile visit.
Beijing sees the icon as a rebel who is unlawfully campaigning for Tibet’s independence.
The Buddhist god-king fled to India after a failed uprising in 1959, nine years after China’s People’s Liberation Army marched into Tibet to establish Beijing’s rule.
Though he has since renounced independence and softened his stance to wanting only more autonomy for Tibet, China has questioned the claims saying the Dalai Lama’s reaching out to foreign governments for support was proof he did not want to find a peaceful resolution to issue.
The Dalai Lama also condemned the New Delhi blasts this weekend urging people to pray for the innocent victims.
“We should make some kind of prayer for the people who suffer from natural disasters…the hurricanes, the different hurricanes as well as the earthquake and man made suffering just a few days back in Delhi and some other part of the world. Daily a lot of innocent people suffer,” he said.
