MOSCOW, June 27, Olga LipichHumanity is not hopeless if it does not invent coffee makers and other «new toys», but deals with issues of consciousness and thinking, which, perhaps, is intended, said in an interview the head of the Institute for Cognitive Studies of St. Petersburg State University, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education, Professor Tatiana Chernigovskaya about withdrawal from communication with the Dalai Lama.
Recently, Chernigovskaya visited the First International Conference «Consciousness of Animals», which was held in Dharamsala (India) on the initiative of the 14th Dalai Lama. The Buddhist spiritual leader believes that all living beings, including insects, have consciousness, but different from the human. He has been studying the achievements of modern scientists for many decades and pays special attention to the role of science and education in establishing peace and harmony on Earth.
«Humanity is not hopeless … It can, if it strains, go along the path that, perhaps, is intended for it (by nature, the Creator — I don't know). Namely: not to invent new toys — now, we had such a coffee maker, and now there will be another coffee maker, but to deal with consciousness. With what thinking is. Mendeleev's periodic system operates by itself. Atoms know how to spin. Why did the Universe need creatures that think?», Chernigovskaya said, answering a question about the most important withdrawal from communication with the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist monk-scholars.
According to her, it is difficult to reconcile modern «science, which deals only with what it weighs and measures, even if it measures quarks, like a centimeter around the waist, with what Buddhist thinkers and meditation practitioners have been doing for thousands of years.» “In principle, they did not carry out primitive measurements“ with a ruler ”, but they have behind them two and a half thousand years of intense thought and work with consciousness. They thought of things that we have not yet reached,” Chernigovskaya noted.
For those who consider Buddhist scholars to be backward, the agency's interlocutor suggested recalling Bosch's painting «Ship of Fools». According to her, «thinking is stronger than scales.»
Buddhist monks-scientists study for 20 or more years, master, among other things, quantum physics and other scientific disciplines, and today, according to Chernigovskaya's observations, they ask «very professional questions.» Conferences, meetings of representatives of modern science with them are needed so that both sides make efforts to «understand each other as accurately as possible,» the neuroscientist believes.
Answering a question about her impressions of communicating personally with the Dalai Lama, Chernigovskaya noted that he is an «incredible personality.» “He is both a sage and a baby at the same time. Look how he sincerely laughs, almost to the point of falling, how he jokes, all these jokes (he pats someone on the belly, someone on the cheek, grabs someone by the hand). only children joke. At the same time, he is a sage. And, of course, he radiates light. When you are next to him, you see and feel it,» Chernigovskaya shared.