Perhaps the greatest global challenge of the 21st century is how to effectively communicate—across cultures, ideologies, disciplines, and experiences. The current pandemic is a dramatic illustration; we are one world, bound together by biology, economics, and environment, yet riven by suspicion of science, by religious and racial conflict, cultural and political divisions. And we see the cost in lives, money, energy, and social capital. The need for models of “positive globalization”—strategies for and examples of meaningful and symbiotic integration and communication—has never been greater. The Emory-Tibet Science Initiative is just such a model (Emory Tibet Science Initiative, 2020). ETSI is an historic collaboration—between American and monastic universities, science and religion, and different worldviews. The accompanying introductory editorial outlines the Dalai Lama's views on science and Buddhism and his reasons for initiating and inspiring the project (Nusslock et al.). ETSI has built a comprehensive modern science curriculum integrated into the traditional monastic training of displaced Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns in India, the first significant change to their curriculum in six centuries. The project, now in its second decade and involving hundreds of scientists and thousands of monastics, provides a rich and rare opportunity for exploring challenging communication issues: (1) questions of cultural and literal translation; (2) best practices in teaching science and engaging research across cultures and within a religious community; and (3) the impacts of bi-directional education, prompting new understandings of culturally-relevant pedagogy at both American and monastic universities.

Today, any Tibetan Buddhist monastic who is considering earning the highest academic degree in his or her institution must complete a 6-year curriculum in physics, neuroscience, and biology. Why? Why would an ancient religion that originated and evolved in the Global South invite modern scientists from the Global North into its monastic universities to teach and integrate science into the curriculum: expand, and contextualize the curriculum rather than narrow it as has occurred with most advanced degrees in the US? The Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI), our project teaching modern science to Buddhist monastics, emerges from the Dalai Lama’s years-long engagement with scientists to discuss how to effectively integrate scientific knowledge and the knowledge of Indo-Tibetan traditions to best serve humanity. The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism represents the centuries-old Nalanda tradition, a worldview grounded in the idea that in order to understand your own worldview, you must understand everyone else’s. Thus, the Dalai Lama’s invitation to scientists in 2008 to catalyze the first major renovation of his monastics’ curriculum in 600 years was a major step toward integrating scientific and traditional knowledges.