Monday, March 9: I open my TODO list. I close the TODO list. I have dozens of starred messages in my inbox I should answer. I skillfully manage to not start working until 3:40pm, and then I run out of excuses. As a last resort, I check the email and see Christof Koch’s reminder about Alan Wallace’s seminar, starting in 10 minutes.

He is the very first ordained Buddhist monk that I see with a business suit:

In Japan, I was struck by the contrast between a Buddhist monk and the salarymen in a train station (click for video):

Well, clothes don’t make the man, which in Italian we translate as: l’abito non fa il monaco, the robe doesn’t make the monk.

The premise of his presentation is that the study of the mind is currently in the same state as physics was before Galileo invented the scientific method. Psychology is to a rigorous study of the mind very much like what alchemy was to chemistry. What Buddhism can offer are the techniques for rigorous introspection in one’s mind. Self-introspection might be a rigorous endeavor, if there is a way to make objective this intrinsically subjective experience.

At this point, I recall the anecdote of the young Newton puncturing his own eyes with a needle to study the diffraction of light (source: Neal Stephenson, probably in Quicksilver, so it might be slightly apocryphal). The novel Newton must find a way to put needles inside in his mind’s eye.

The presentation is interesting overall, but by the end he starts talking about “luminosity” and other similar metaphysical notions, so I pack up my stuff and leave, happy to have avoided another hour of work.