Donnerstag, 16. Juli 2009
I've just returned from a lecture given by the NP Laureate of 1991, Prof Richard Ernst, and was very much treated to a wonderful feast of the brain and soul. What an enlightening enlightened speaker! Crossing disciplines such as Buddhist philosophy, intercultural (Sino-Tibetan) history, art, chemistry and painting, he beautifully fused sciences and arts into a memorable tapestry very naturally in simply expressed English.
His lecture started by threading the ancient sources of colored paints and their enrichment of the Tibetan palette into the broader panorama of the fascinating Tibetan painting and its expression of Buddhist philosophy followed by the spread of Buddhism in the stories on the thankas, to the use of science and chemistry to restore and interpret the age of the thankas and paints, and finally reaching the 'nirvana' of how science could be injected into art and vice-versa to give 'soul' for service to humankind. It was the emphasis on spirituality peppered with the childlike scientific curiosity which I enjoyed very much. I am very glad that I went to the talk.
On top of the whole pleasurable experience of coming face-to-face with the first Nobel Prize Laureate whom I have met, I was very much struck by his gentleness and humility. He didn't make me feel like I was a fool at least! Then I wished all those big-ego academics had come to say 'hello' to him.
Unlike many others who arrived with their digital cameras, I went without any idea of how the man would look like, what his background was...I wonder now why I was so 'unprepared'? I am glad though that he gave me his card with his address and contact numbers at ETH. Well, at least that's another 'earthly connection' back to a slice of this wonderful lecture. He really made me think of my dear Swiss friends...
*I pray that I will be able to visit them next year in Davos.
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