The Dalai Lama
Many years after I went into exile in India, I came across an open letter from the 1940s addressed to the Buddhist thinkers of Tibet. It was written by Gendün Chöphel, a Tibetan scholar who not only had mastered Sanskrit but also, uniquely among Tibetan thinkers of his time, had a good command of English. He traveled extensively in British India, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka in the 1930s. This letter, composed toward the end of his twelve-year trip, was amazing to me. It articulates many of the areas in which there could be a fruitful dialogue between Buddhism and modern science. I discovered that Gendün Chöphel’s observations often coincide remarkably with my own. It is a pity that this letter did not attract the attention it deserved, partly because it was never properly published in Tibet before I came into exile in 1959. But I find it heartwarming that my journey into the scientific world has a precedent within my own Tibetan tradition. All the more so since Gendün Chöphel came from my native province of Amdo. Encountering this letter so many years after it was written was an impressive moment.
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