Blog

Monday

I arrived into Mumbai around 3 am (which felt like 3 pm) and I joined a very long line of foreign nationals who almost all appeared to be South Asian. (My arms felt empty as I looked around at all the mothers holding sleeping kids.) About 45 minutes later I learned I was in the wrong line and joined the e-visa line, which - as far as I can tell - was simply the line for American travelers. After getting through customs, I exited to the outside. My driver was waiting with a sign for Leslie Jill; it struck me as sweet and Southern to see both names. He took me to the hotel - not far - where they checked under the car with a mirror for bombs (this surprised me), checked my luggage, and by 5 am I was in my room, very much awake for the next few hours. By 9 am I was asleep and - shockingly - woke up next around 7 pm.

It’s now early morning and I’m writing from the hotel restaurant where there’s a buffet of fascinating foods - but I’m so unsure of what they are (condiment? sauce? soup? should I serve on rice or eat from a bowl?) that I opted for the one thing served on bread - a potato dumpling of sorts, which seemed like eating a mashed potato sandwich. It was delicious. Also surprisingly delicious is the coffee.

Photos: Bedouin camps viewed from the plane; the Burj Khalifa viewed from the runway; Mumbai (and me) as viewed from my hotel (not much of a view); and my potato sandwich.

Tuesday

At the Mumbai airport domestic departures, those of us traveling to the Monasteries clearly stood out as American. We greeted one another and took a short flight to Hubli. The man beside me - from Hubli - kept asking, "You're going to HUBLI?" I don't think they have many foreigners; it's like going to the Peoria of India. (It turns out locals want to take selfies with us because it is so rare to see a white person - we are way out there.)

The monks met us at the airport with white scarves, and then we had an hour + drive. The drive was terrifying - there are mopeds stacked with families, trucks with people leaning out, small carts, livestock, buses, and all an inch from each other at 45 mph and no real sense of a 'lane.' There was a road crew that seemed to be working by hand on breaking up the road to lay new asphalt. We drove off the main road and through small towns with small market fronts and people everywhere; I would think we were far from anyone and then you'd come to 50 people all on the edge of the road, talking and shopping, chilis and mangos and chickens for sale.

Then we turned into the monastery - it's part of a Tibetan refugee settlement and looks entirely different from everywhere else - built like a university; large buildings, dorms, quads. Dinner was filling - rice, daal, noodles with mushrooms, beets, cucumbers, spices, a meat dish, fruit, tea.

We then walked to the monastery proper (we're in the guest buildings), where, at the end of their day of studies, the monks were chanting -- in small dorms we could see young 8 - 10 year olds reciting their chants; in larger rooms were the older monks. And then begins (around 8 pm) the debates. More on these tomorrow. They are impressive.

Photos: Mumbai from above (slums right up against airport); "fast food" Chinese; and rural India.

Wednesday

There is a style of debate the monks engage in as pairs, with a "defender" and "challenger" -- the challenger posing a series of questions that the defender can agree or disagree with. This took place in the courtyard last night (it does not happen every night, but is common) and we got to watch. It all takes place in Tibetan so I couldn't follow; one debate, our translator noted, was about why they wear the red robes; others are related to the science they are learning ("since my hand is made of atoms, my hand does not exist" was the translation). It's incredibly animated and they look like they're having a blast. It reminded me of rap battles or playing the dozens. One thing I tried to figure out from the translators is whether they are rehearsing the arguments they've read/been taught or if they are trying to produce new knowledge; might there be a very witty or creative insight that is unexpected? My sense is that it's mostly the former but that they are trying to make sense of the ideas, too.

Today we visited our classrooms (we teach starting tomorrow); tonight we meet with the Geshe. Below are photos: meals have been amazing - roti, dosa and chickpea breakfast (along with a jar of peanut butter for us Americans! The hospitality is amazing.); lunch included dumplings, an eggplant dish, choy, beans, rice, cucumber/carrot.

Thursday

Last night we were invited to a panel discussion in "Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Je Tsongkhapa Passing into Perinirvana" (this sounds like purgatory but I imagine is not). The title: The Modes of How Things are Being Posited as Existent in Buddhism, Modern Scientific Philosophy, and Physics. This - how we posit entities (energy, seconds, seurat spots, curvicity) and the social ways in which we come to treat them as "real" - is so my jam. I felt like the way Buddhists described it (in particular the importance of trust - that you have come to trust the person positing a claim about something you cannot perceive) was closer to science than the way the philosophers described it (inductive/deductive reasoning). I had wished there was a sociologist of science there. I got a kick out of it. Also, it felt surreal to be on a stage in a monastery surrounded by Geshes, with a room full of monks in robes sitting on the floor. At one point the power went out and no one even paused - just kept on discussing in the dark.

Today I began teaching - I had planned to discuss conservation of mass today (and atoms, molecules, etc - we "cover" all of physics in 8 days) and began with the question "is there a smallest piece of water?" comparing it to grains of sand. They jumped right in talking to one another (this is a relief) and after some discussion (in Tibetan) they decided “yes.” “So,” I asked, “if you take the smallest piece and cut it in two, what will you have?” “Smaller water!” the one monk answered. “Then you did not get to the smallest piece!” I replied and they laughed and smiled - it was really not unlike a conversation with playful and insightful undergrads. One, in particular, is older and wily and witty - he did not believe me when I said a drop of water had 10^19 particles moving at 2000 km/h - because then the water should fly apart. Right! So we are still missing something from our model! And we looked at beaded up water and runny ethanol - “this is alcohol?” they said. “We don’t drink!” (laughter) And sometimes you can pantomime so that there is no translation necessary, and I jokingly made it clear they were not to drink the alcohol. I co-teach with Ilya, who is Russian, who joked that a Russian would drink ethanol.

Once we introduced the idea that the water particles attract, they completely steered us off course, wanting to know about attractions and the particles that make up water and how we know what we know. Again, my witty monk does not believe there is empty space. We discussed Rutherford. We made an analogy to throwing a ball at a fence. “You still don’t believe me.” He laughed and bowed.

I actually want to come back to his question. I think we operationalize emptiness by saying “a fast moving alpha particle can pass straight through.” And under this operationalization, the answer is that atoms are mostly empty space. That is all the claim means. This seems important to me.

Other questions that came up included - after discussing water - why we have a water crisis. Does water really not disappear - if you sealed it in a jar for 25 years - would it still not disappear? Why is snow white if it is also made of water particles?

Often they ask questions - “what causes the force between electrons?” “where did this matter come from?” - that we cannot answer in a way that is satisfying. The bridge is very far.

In other news, the days are very hot and the air is still. There is no a/c and yesterday and today the power is out (or sporadic) so there was not even a fan. Even still it's not as bad as you might expect.

Friday:

Day 2 of teaching, but we teach for so long each day that this already feels routine.

I began class with Fish is Fish - I think it was Brian Frank that first introduced me to this book - they had so many great questions yesterday that I couldn’t answer, and so I thought this would be a lovely metaphor. “I have to explain this as a scientist. You have to understand me as a Buddhist. So we will misunderstand each other. But we will try.” They are so cheerful and delightful that I probably could have said anything and they would still respond with smiles and laughter, but they responded with smiles and laughter and I thought this was good. I want to mail this book to the monastery when I get home.

Today we posed a question, and one monk responded that it is “in the nature of matter to stop moving” and another said, “it cannot stop moving without giving its motion away.” “So you two disagree?” “Oh, I would never disagree with him!” The monks laughed, but I wondered if it was taboo to highlight dissent. I asked Rigzin, one of my translators, about this. He said it was a joke - “Oh it is essential to disagree. You can disagree with other monks. You can disagree with the Buddha! You can disagree with the Dalai Lama! If you only agree with your lama, what is the point?!” Giddy up; this made me wonder if there is any other religion in which you are encouraged to disagree with its highest authority in this way. And they like to disagree with me - to find flaws in our stories.

One thing Ilya noted is that, if I give part of a lecture and he gives another part, the monks will very specifically direct their question to me or to him, based on the question. It is not a question “about physics” that either of us could answer, but a question about our line of argument that isn’t sound. This feels uniquely tied to their tradition. In some ways it makes me feel on the spot for presenting a coherent argument for the discipline rather than a collaborative Ilya + Leslie show; in other ways it feels like it makes my knowledge feel very internalized/personal - that it is my specific understanding and argument they are considering.

Another thing that is beyond noteworthy (and related) is how ready they are to debate ideas. The monks are all in their 20s and have, I gather, been in the monastery for many years. There is a strong tradition of debate - for finding flaws in arguments - so as I am presenting, they are not so much trying to memorize what I say or even make sense of it, but vet it. Maybe vetting is sense-making but it feels different/deeper. So this has two benefits: first, if I pose a question or a topic to debate, they do; I do a lot of work in my classrooms to structure and support conversation - that is not an issue here. They are very used to learning through conversations. Second, they are scouring their brains as I talk to see if they agree or not with me, and they come up with brilliant questions.

So we’re using the PhET gas simulation today and they wanted to know HOW the flame heated the gas in the box (no one has ever asked me this ever). I went the conduction route (instead of radiation) to say the flame is hot particles which bump into the container and the particles in the container bump into the gas. A few minutes later, “Ma’am, you said the gas heats up by first heating the container. However, ma’am, when I heat water in a pot, the water is hotter than the pot.” And we had a fantastic conversation about this.

Another brilliant question that came up: when we were discussing temperature in a gas, one monk suggested that if two particles happen to be traveling towards each other with the same speed and run into each other, they will stop and it will cool down. It took me a second to remember the collisions are elastic! What an amazing question, right?

And then today we discussed a favorite topic of mine - why you can see and hear someone as soon as they walk in a room, but you cannot smell them. The first response to this question was simply “smell travels slowly.” But what is smell, I asked, hoping to orient them to the idea that air particles move at 2000 km/h. And immediately they laughed - “AH be careful! This is a debate topic.” So this is a deep question for Buddhism! Answer (paraphrasing somewhat?): “Smell is that sensation which is perceived by the nose.” So I was pleased with my pivot here - “Yes, this makes sense. But if I taste something, it slowly disappears as I taste it. If I see something, it does not disappear. Is smell more like taste or sight?” Now I got an answer: it is like taste. And so we went on laughing about smelling people and making sense of these ideas.

It’s now nighttime as I’m writing - we had no power all afternoon, and after dinner walked out of the monastery grounds to get a beer. As we left, a colleague who is from India said “you do have your passport?” and he was shocked we did not carry them at all times. “You stand out - very very much. You need your passport.” This was the first time I’ve realized just how naive I might be in feeling safe. And when we left the monastery grounds, ducked into a hut, and bought beer, we did stand out. People gathered. It didn’t feel safe. I particularly felt tall, white and female - women are not out and about in the evening.

Finally, let me say that this is the first thing I have done that has felt like Governor’s School but is not actually Governor’s School. Part of that is just the physical things - it’s 95 - 100 degrees, humid, and no air conditioning, beds are uncomfortable, food is good but it’s in a cafeteria of sorts eating at long tables, we teach an insane amount of hours a day to enthusiastic students. But it’s something more: everyone here is volunteering two weeks to teach physics - so we’re a collection of people who would leave our homes/kids (most of us are parents - I’m not the only one with a 5-year-old) to teach in an uncomfortable but interesting setting; this feeling, perhaps, that you’re part of something transformative and unique; and how nice (I’m surprised to find) it is to be cut off a bit from family and friends for a while. Although I miss you all and will be happy to be home.

Photos below: attentive students pondering the ideal gas law; the market we pass each day; Ilya & Regzin describing gases.

Saturday

We teach 6 days a week, with Monday as our day off because it’s market day. Other towns have market on different days, so there’s no uniform “weekend” day around here. I don’t know if this is true nationwide or just in the rural areas. (I do know that children are in school 6 days a week.)

It was a busy and fun day today - we started with the Newton’s Cradle, and everyone can’t help but to play with it. My question was essentially “what does the last ball receive from the first ball?” At some point (I did not sleep most of the night so I can't quite remember what happened today!) we had students list kinds of energy for us. I knew I was going to refer to this a lot so as I wrote I drew pictures (because translating is time consuming) - during lunch the translator added tibetan to the list. Many of these are similar to what my students might say. Some - “compassion energy” - are definitely not!

Saturday night was the first time I’ve been sick here - so went to bed early without dinner and slept soundly.

Sunday

I made some energy animations of the Newton’s Cradle before returning to our question of whether a ball thrown in space would slow down and stop. This representation, I think, makes it clear that the question of whether or not the ball will slow down becomes the question is “does the ball in space have anywhere for the energy to go?” - and today they agreed it does not stop. One monk said “yesterday I did not agree but now I do.” And I said, “If you had agreed right away, I would not have believed you.” They agreed. This comes up for me over and over again teaching undergrads— where they don’t seem to wonder if they agree or disagree with the claims I’ve made, but just write them down and memorize for the test. Here, this doesn’t happen - they are skeptical of the challenging ideas, and call us out on them. (“Madam, you said protons repel each other but then, madam, you said that they are together in the nucleus, madam.” And so we discussed the weak nuclear force on day 1 of physics.)

The morning was truly truly fun - my co-teacher and I are getting to be a great team, and play off each other well. We’re learning to anticipate what each other will say in a given moment and respond. I’m reminded of teaching with Irene. We (Ilya and I) have very different orientations to physics - he very oriented to equations and predictions, I’m more analogical and visual-model oriented - but I think it’s working well together. He’s a much better physicist than I am, but in a different vein, which makes things fun.

Along the way we did a pendulum lab, measuring the period of a pendulum and then halving the length and asking for predictions. At this point Ilya predicted the new period (and, of course, got it right): the students were amazed.

AND THEN we had a debate. We are together for ~ 5 hours a day in an un-air-conditioned room with about 30 people, so these are long days and we try to do something in the afternoons to wake ourselves up. So we asked them to debate in the Tibetan style and developed the following question:

~ 500 years ago, an apple fell on Newton’s head and he developed the idea of gravity. Is it possible that today for lunch we all ate some particles from that apple?

The oldest of the monks said: “here is how we should debate this - we will do a group debate, yes?” Okay. “Those who agree with this are the defenders (they sit on the floor), those who disagree are the challengers (they stand).” And so it began. Please do yourself a favor and watch this short video. It will blow your mind. (I have some longer videos to share

The challengers are developing a line of argument by sequencing question after question to lead to their conclusion. Each question/point ends with a clap. The defenders (sitting) are answering yes or no to the question. If a response is ridiculous they make a circular motion with their hand to show the response is crazypants (it’s a you’re-so-confused-you’re-facing-the-wrong-way kind of gesture). Oh my lord it is ridiculous fun. And one of the most amazing things of all is that there is strong affect and pushing on ideas but there is no sense of honest insult (despite the crazypants claim above) - just like a good basketball game isn’t offensive to the losing team.

The debaters agreed that matter is not destroyed - the apple particles are still here. The debate, in my surely-not-quite-accurate-understanding, hinged on the following: NewtonAppleParticle (a Buddhist orientation) v. Particle from Newton’s Apple. In what was so lovely I had to write it down, one monk patiently explained to me: “In Buddhism we have a belief that cause must precede effect” (yes, we have this notion, too), “and so the past is not on your plate.” Oh love love love. More on this in my next post. Along with a story about last night’s dinner. Today we go to market, to a smoke/prayer offering, and a meditation.

Monday

There are three monasteries where physics is being taught; I’m at the smallest and least modern of the three. The others have modern, relatively new buildings, labs (we have very very little equipment available), apartment-style accommodations (with mosquito nets and hot water), and a/c in all the classrooms and sleeping rooms. On Sunday, we visited Drepung (the closest other monastery) for dinner, and found they also had amazing food, including mango lassi (!) and ice cream. (And french fries of all things.) It was the first cold food I’ve eaten in a week. It might be sour grapes, but I much prefer our humble monastery, our very basic accommodations and that there are three Indian women outside making our three meals a day - we’re already spoiled with hospitality and here it feels more like we are visiting the Tibetan village and not staying in a hotel.

Today, Monday, was our one day “off” and we were tourists. In the morning we went to a prayer mountain where the Tibetan Buddhists burn offerings and hang prayer flags. There was a Tibetan ceremony taking place (with all women - and one man who we think we the groom for the one very-dressed-up woman) - the monks assured us we were welcome (though I felt uncomfortable), and it was amazing to listen to the songs and see the dances. They shared food with us as well - sweet coconut rice and a fry bread. We stayed there a while before visiting the shops in Camp 3 (all the Tibetan villages are referred to as refugee camps, though it’s been 40 years or more since the camps were initially designated). I was tempted to buy a yak wool blanket from Tibet but didn’t. We walked back home for lunch.

After lunch, three of us (Alissa, Ilya and I) took a tuk tuk to the nearest Indian town of Mundgod for market. This was as loud and busy and crowded and colorful as anything I have seen - you are never not shoulder-to-shoulder with someone, and at most 3 feet or so from a vendor. There are mangos and pineapple and pomegranate, pepper mills making chili powders, vegetables, lentils, grains, and spices. Pigs and cows were walking around. It was amazing. It makes WinCo look horrifically sterile. I bought some spices - I considered more aggressive things but wound up with cardamom and chili powder, cinnamon and fenugreek. I thought I was telling the chili powder guy that I would like to spend about X Rupees on chili, but he thought I was telling him how many grams. I now own a lot of chili powder. :)

Pictures below: market lentils and beans; the chili grinder; metals for sale; the prayer mountain art. (I have video of the Tibetan ceremony I may be able to post later.

Tuesday

Today's class was straightforward: motion of the sun, moon, earth and stars. We began by gathering everything they know about this and they knew a ton ( mostly - some knew very little); all knew the moon takes 28 days to cycle through the phases because instead of calling it a waxing crescent they call it a Day 4 Moon (and so on). We collected all the facts on the board and then began by saying how much is explained by saying the Earth spins? (Had a student come be Earth and model it) - that gets us a lot. Then added the revolution. This explains the variety of stars. Then added the moon going around us. Then added the tilt. This took all day.

The two Abbots from the various monasteries visited us today and then the head of the group of Abbots led us in a meditation tonight. The position of Buddhism is that religion is not handed down from God but invented by people to meet their needs/address their fears. He continued on and it truly was fascinating-- but it's late and I'm exhausted.

Below: the meditation space; the notes on the solar system.

Wednesday

To summarize a bit more from the Abbot’s conversation, we heard of the history (somewhat) of Buddhism coming into Tibet from India. He is incredibly conversant in English and clearly spent time in the West; he described that what passes for meditation in the West is mostly about relaxation and a nice “rest” for the mind - “this is a good thing. Bodies need rest and mind needs rest” - but he was clear that meditation in the Buddhist tradition is hard work. It is not relaxing. And it varies of course, but often the focus of meditation is on impermanence. “In Buddhism, we believe that effect must come after cause.” (This again!) - but then he continued to say that the effect immediately succeeds the cause (aha! - so now I understand the Buddhist debate about cause and effect: the monk thinks that the throw causes the speed, and when the throw is gone the speed must also disappear. And this is consistent with Buddhism.) Anyway, this cause/effect story is tied to the idea of impermanence for the Buddhist monks. He discussed the afflictive emotions (number one being attachment); the positive emotions (devotion, compassion, truth…). The mind as distinct from the body. And the “I” as a destructive kind of feeling. In truth, I found it fascinating but not “motivating.” I had anticipated I might hear something that would really make me want to learn more or try out some practices, but I think I’ll stick with meditation for relaxation. (He then led a meditation, and the entire time I had to cough and suppressed it so much my eyes watered, so I looked like I was weeping in the meditation.) But if you were thinking I might come back to Boise with a new inner peace, radiating compassion like a Buddha, I’m not quite there. On the other hand, I have found our spare accommodations and instant coffee and extreme heat and cold showers has no effect on my happiness, as the Buddha might suggest (“a beggar can be quite happy,” said the Abbot). I could even give up coffee at this point. So maybe I am gaining some kind of serenity.

Class today was light and color; it’s a favorite topic but hard to do it justice in 4.5 hours without materials. As always, there were great questions. Including whether solar panels store light inside. I just have one more full day of teaching and then a day of review + exams; we do sound tomorrow and I’m woefully underprepared at this point. This is some fast-paced teaching.

After teaching we usually head to a small “cafe” (for wont of a better word - a room full of picnic-table seating and set of two refrigerators with cokes, sprites, orange soda and fizzy water), get some soda and debrief before walking home. Today, the rains started while we were there - total gullywasher. We tried to get home during a break, but the break was brief and we were soaked by the time we got in. The power was out for quite a while then and so we watched the rain.

Pictures today are of sunrise and rain.

Thursday

Yesterday was light & color, today is sound. But sound can be "covered" relatively quickly, so I started by having an entire period to figure out why the sky is blue. Their ideas were so *very* similar to what my high school students have said - reflection from the ocean; the sky must have a blue tint; the temperature. Eventually someone in the room gave such an accurate response that I don’t know if this was because he knew the answer already or the monk who translates knows the answer and so the translation sounded better than the real answer. But at least we had three reasonable answers up on the board to reason through. And ultimately we got to the idea that blue light is scattered more than red. “But,” my favorite monk says, “in Tibet we have a saying that when the sunrise is red, the weather will be bad, but if the sunset is red, the weather will be good.” WHAT! We have this saying, too! (This was a big question for students one year when Matty and I taught this topic to high schoolers.) We talked through the answer and he was quite pleased.

And then we played around with sound — first using rulers to make sounds (thanks, friends, for the advice! - we couldn’t get a big speaker), connect that to vibration, and then we looked into sound waves, reflections, echos, etc., mostly using PhET. At some point (discussing echoes) I said something about how you sound good when you sing in the shower. A monk speaks up. Translator: “Madam, he says that even in the shower, his singing is not good.” Ha. Physics can't explain everything.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, the pinhole theater box (which we were no longer using and was sitting under my table) burst open, a stray cat jumped out and ran out the window. Friends, I nearly died.

And now we’re done. Tomorrow we have a period before the test and will talk about fun things like the Big Bang and causality. Then we grade 30 exams. And then we prepare to go home.

Other things to note: the monastery has no women’s restrooms (go figure), but the restrooms all have individual stalls so this isn’t necessarily a problem. But today while doing my business I was quite certain someone had not shut the door to his stall, so I spent quite a while waiting for him to finish before exiting my stall. Also, the stalls have a sink AND A SHOWER. I cannot explain this. See photo, in which you can’t actually see the shower head but you’ll see the knobs. Bet you didn’t log in today thinking you’d see a Tibetan Buddhist monastery bathroom stall. You’re welcome.

Another thing to note: the cafe where we grab a soda after class has different sodas today. 2L bottles, containers of “curd,” etc. This, too, I can’t explain. Do they put in orders and change it up every other week? Is it catch-as-catch-can? Did the foreigners (me) go through all their usual drinks?

Also inexplicable is the internet: I will finally connect via my laptop, and see no signal on my phone. Or I’ll connect on my phone and the laptop will get a notice that the password is incorrect (it’s correct). At times, we think there seems to be a limit - that if three people are connected no one else can, but since this isn’t always true I think it’s actually never the real explanation.

Yesterday: monsoons, yesterday night: bugs. We have a shared room that has a/c (and closed doors = no bugs); I slept there. So then my room was available for someone whose room had a much more serious infestation. At 3 am, what felt like hurricane-force winds ripped through the town - doors flying open and everything in the room flying around. It seemed like everyone slept in a different room and that no one slept.

The food here is filling and delicious but repetitive*. Breakfast is always a flatbread (roti, puri and/or something a bit more like a pancake), a chickpea or lentil dish (often with potatoes), some eggs. I make a burrito out of this but the monks eat it more like injera. Lunch is always a flatbread (roti and puri) or a tibetan bread roll (like a dumpling), a chickpea dish or lentil dish, a veggie dish (today was fried eggplant), and a soup (very thin broth and a few veggies), and papadum. Dinner is the same as lunch (which wasn’t that different from breakfast), but usually has a cucumber salad, too. Sometimes there is meat in the soup. And always a bowl of a spicy paste, which I eat morning noon and night on everything. I’m never hungry - it’s so filling, have only once had an upset stomach.

* Let me add that I think it’s repetitive, but my Indian colleague one day said “oh this is my favorite kind of lentil!” Me: “There are different kinds?” Him: “Are you kidding? We have a different kind each day! This kind is unwashed.” [husk on] - so there is variety but I’m blind to it.

photos from today are: (1) my class listening to the sound of rulers and (2) a bathroom.

Friday

Last day. The next session of courses are taught by biologists and they arrived at the monastery last night; just 10 days ago we were the newcomers (the philosophers teach the first session) and time feels strange here. It has been a long time since I’ve done something so different from my daily life - time is like summer-camp-time where it all seems to last forever. Most of the class periods today were taken up by a final review and giving exams.

After this was done there was a small ceremony - we were given white scarves and “yak” bags (with yaks on them. pretty cute.) and applause from the students. One student from our class gave a little speech on behalf of the class, including noting that they realize how far we’ve come, during holiday, leaving our families, with jet lag, and probably getting loose bowel movements. All said with complete sincerity.

The afternoon was taken up by grading. Grades ranged widely - probably (as in America) a function of how much formal science education they had previously and their familiarity with English. The last question on the exam asked for ways in which they saw physics and Buddhism in tension. A great deal of answers had to do with primary colors — which I don’t find too surprising — and another large set of answers had to do with Buddhism as interrogating yourself/your mind, and physics seems to be about things that are external. I wouldn’t entirely agree with this notion of physics but I can completely understand that this is the perception of physics after our class.

And then they let us know they’d be opening up the pool to us for the afternoon. Right by the hospital is a guest house with a pool that is usually only open to “monks and gents” - complete with a snack bar that sells ice cream (?!). I walked the mile down to Camp 3 to buy some cheap leggings and top to swim in (hard to buy a women’s swimsuit in a monastery). We all commented on how it was the first time we’ve honestly felt cool and clean since arriving. We stayed as long as we could - it was delicious. Then dinner, and out again for drinks (a sweet lime soda - no alcohol in a monastery).

Photos are of the pool (which is an incongruous luxury - don't think the rest of the place looked like this), the snack bar, and a note on the exam.