Overview of Initiative

The Sager Family Foundation has sponsored the Science for Tibetan Monks Workshop for the past six years, an initiative which is the first time in history that western science has been taught to Tibetan Monks as part of their monastic studies.

In past years, the Sager Family Foundation’s Science for Tibetan Monks program has focused on holding annual month-long workshops on science and mathematics for Tibetan Monk scholars to build a framework for the exchange of ideas between these two great traditions. Subjects taught included Physics, Mathematics, Neuroscience and others that are of common interest to Buddhism and science.

The Sager Family Foundation is now setting up a new initiative to teach science to the entire Tibetan monastic system. The initiative, called the Bobby Sager Teacher Leadership Institute, builds on the work done by the Science for Monks workshops and aims to facilitate the development of a sustainable community of effective science teacher/leaders within the Tibetan monastic system currently exiled in India. Teacher/leaders trained by the Bobby Sager Teacher Leadership Institute will be responsible for delivering science education to the greater monastic community.

To help promote scientific knowledge within the wider Tibetan community, the Sager Family Foundation will also be sponsoring the Institute of Buddhist Dialects’ “Ocean of Knowledge” project to translate and dub educational science videos into Tibetan. Videos produced will be distributed free of cost to various Monastic universities, and Tibetan schools, augmenting their current science curriculum.

Why We Are Doing It

When asked why in the midst of all of the work that we do around the world having to do with conflict and dire situations are we so interested in the connection between science and Tibetan monks, consider this analogy: The exotic plants of the rainforest may hold the cure to some terrible disease, and maybe there is something in Tibetan Buddhism that could also profoundly impact the future of humankind; but, like the exotic plants that have their habitat destroyed, the Tibetans must perpetuate a religion and a people while their environment is similarly under siege. Teaching Western science to Tibetan monks makes the wisdom of Tibetans more accessible to the rest of the world.

Newer initiatives described below, such as the Bobby Sager Teacher Leadership Institute and the Institute of Buddhist Dialects’ “Ocean of Knowledge” project aim to introduce science to a wider audience, including the entire Tibetan monastic community, and the wider Tibetan community.

The goal of the Bobby Sager Teacher Leadership Institute is to facilitate the development a sustainable community of effective science teacher/leaders within the Tibetan monastic system responsible for delivering and leading science education in the greater monastic community.

Institute of Buddhist Dialects’ “Ocean of Knowledge” project aims to introduce science to young Tibetans, with the hope that video produced by the project, will help them develop an interest in the subject and encourage them to pursue its study.

How We Measure Success

His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself has stated that it may take 100 years to know whether the Science for Monks has achieved these objectives. Although the full impact of the program may take many years to observe, there are several success measures that will be visible in the shorter term.

How effectively the program transfers scientific knowledge and understanding to Tibetan monks:

• Number of monks trained in Western science
• Number of teacher/leaders trained to deliver science education to the greater monastic community
• Measurable improvement in the understanding of science by the monks

Plan for the Future Teacher/leaders trained by the Bobby Sager Teacher Leadership Institute will be responsible for delivering science education to the greater monastic community. Emory University, through the Emory Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI), is currently developing curriculum that will be used in an intensive 4-6 week summer program (starting May/June 2008). This five year program will enroll 20-30 new students each year. Through evaluation data over the first several years, ETSI will improve the curriculum until it is suitable to being used with the larger monastic community. Teacher/leaders trained by the Bobby Sager Teacher Leadership Institute will initially serve within ETSI as organizers, teaching assistants, and teachers. They will be provided training on program design, program assessment, science content, leadership, and strategies in effective science pedagogy. In future years, monks and nuns trained by the Teacher Leadership Institute will be responsible for delivering and leading science education in the greater monastic community.