And so I kept it very loose. I am anxious to find out what it could become. More than what I would like for it to be.
Bohm
We see reality according to our thought. Wherever you look, it’s the product of thought, right? Buildings, farms, airplanes—everything. Pollution. And our thought is constantly participating both in giving shape and form and figuration to ourselves and to the whole of reality, right?
Gyatso
Reality? Of course it’s all this. Interdependent. You see, without [???] inward existence, something, one thing [???]. See, without other factor it cannot exist. So it’s everything related.
The faster, the quicker the people of the developed countries are taught to understand that it is really in their interest to reduce poverty in the world, the faster our planet will be able to solve that issue.
For Tibetans, the Dalai Lama is Tenzing, the Buddha of compassion. “You need a sense of universal responsibility based on love and compassion” has been the Dalai Lama’s message ever since he fled from Tibet in 1959.
Gyatso
Deep down, you see, it is Tibetan speech. Very strong.
Quantum physicist and philosopher David Bohm was profoundly affected by his close contacts with both Einstein and J. Krishnamurti. Bohm’s theory of wholeness and the implicate order states that there is something like life and mind enfolded in everything.
You can’t, on one little ball like the Earth, isolate yourself.
For influential artist Robert Rauschenberg, art is not half as interesting as life. Rauschenberg promotes international understanding and peace by exhibiting his own artworks in some of the most troubled places of the world. When not traveling he spends his time working on the island of Captiva in Florida.
I recognize that if we don’t—we, the living people right now—don’t pay attention to the total world. And so what we have to do is somehow establish a society, a successful society, that would somehow educate everyone in all parts of the land, so that they would realize that we’re just on this little ball here, and everything that we do—because we have been very extravagant in our developments—and everything that we do makes a difference here and there and everywhere.
Bohm
Well, you see, I think the difficulty is this fragmentation, first of all. Everybody’s all thought as broken up into bits, like this nation, this country, this industry, this profession, and so on, and they can’t meet, right? And it’s extremely hard to break into that. Now, that comes about primarily because thought has developed traditionally in a way such that it claims not to be affecting anything, but just telling you the way things are. Therefore, people cannot see that they’re creating a problem, and then apparently trying to solve it. That is—see, let’s take the problem like pollution, or the ecology. See, the ecology is not in itself a problem. It works perfectly well by itself. It’s due to us. It’s a problem because we are thinking in a certain way by breaking everything up and each person is doing his own thing, right? Now therefore, the ecological problem is due to thought, right? But thought thinks it is a problem out there and I must solve it. Now, that doesn’t make sense, because simultaneously thought is doing all the activities which make the problem, and then there’s another set of activities to try to overcome it. You see, it doesn’t stop doing the things which are making the ecological problem, or the national problem, or whatever the problem is.
Gyatso
Buddhist belief: the one self as a creator. So the future, if good or bad, entirely depend on present shoulder. It entirely depend on our own present behavior, our present action.
Bohm
The Earth is one household, really. And we’re not treating it that way, right? So that’s the first step in economics: is to say the Earth is one household, and all that it depends on—it’s all one, you see? Now, the implicate order would help us to see that: to see everything enfolds everything. Everybody not merely depends on everybody, but actually everybody is everybody in a deeper sense. See, we are the Earth because all our substance comes from the Earth and goes back. It’s wong to say it’s an environment, to say it’s just surrounding us, because that would be like the brain regarding the stomach as part of its environment.
Gyatso
So, you see, in order to change the external thing, first must change within ourself. If we want beautiful garden, first in human mind they say make some kind of blueprint of the imagination, of vision. And then, according to that idea, then, you see, implement. Then the external things will materialize. So first must come in mind. Like that. That’s what we believe.
Right, ladies and gentlemen—please, can you all take your seats!
The whole planet is changing in all its parts, including western Europe, the United States, Japan, Tibet, India, the whole so-called Third World. And it’s not just a small change, it is a radical change. And it is a normal process. You cannot avoid the question whether the kind of society which exists now is coming to an end. Not only socialism, communism, whatever you call it, but also the Western type of society. No existing society is not only perfect at any given time, but the question is whether it is adequate. There’s a lot of groping for power, a lot of fighting for power, a lot of cynicism.
Now, when I’m thinking about our leaders, I think: why not bring in more intellectuals, scientists, spiritual leaders? I think that we should put in charge more people who are able to look far ahead, who are creative. I don’t think it is so dangerous that these people are not professional politicians. I think it’s quite good. And chances are that at least most of these people will be decent, particularly people of art—and I am looking at Rauschenberg. These people, they come to understand quicker than others something that will happen in the future. They even may not know this, you know? But by what Rauschenberg was doing, you know, just spilling water and paint, this is some sign of the future. He feels things that will be coming. He is a magician. He’s the modern magician that shows these things.
Now we wait, and then the other colors set up.
How long does it take?
Well, it… you never know what they’re going to do. So it’s like the erosion that I was talking about before. And I’m using that in my paintings.
Yeah, I can see the problem.
When I started working on the brass I thought that I might be accused of knowing more about what I was doing than I do. And so I’ve kept it very loose. I’m anxious to find out what it could become—more than what I would like for it to be.
So you are following the process?
I’m following the process and the process is following me. I mean, there’s no separation. I mean, we are both bewildering each other. I’m giving them a kind of life that they never had before. And so I’m recycling, you know, the waste. Whether I’m walking around the streets of New York City or Amsterdam. Actually, I did some nice works in Amsterdam, but it was—the city is so clean. It was difficult to find anything that was considered a waste.
Come back. There’s erosion there, too.
Alright, I’ll be there. I’ll be there tomorrow. Okay.
Bohm
The root of the word “compassion” is to feel together. And if people have the same feeling together and are responsible for each other, then you have compassion.
And you don’t think it’s part of—what’s the word?—original sin that human beings in their very nature compete?
Bohm
Well, I don’t think that there is such thing as original sin. And I think it has developed more and more with the growth of our society. There’s no evidence that people in the hunter-gatherer society were all that competitive. But the more you’ve made society big, and you had organization, and you had to get to the top, the people on the bottom would suffer. There was a drive to compete, naturally.
And do you think that perhaps the desire to compete is a weakness?
Bohm
Not a weakness. That’s a mistake.
I think that’s one of the biggest dangers. That, like, I think that’s what drives countries and nations apart, is a sense of competition.
But are you competing, as it were, with yourself? Is that what the artist does? The satisfaction in the end is: you reach what you were after?
No, my problem is: how successfully can I change my mind again?
Gyatso
I always feel the compassion. Not just sort of, you see, the warm heart, but also, you see, I think, genuine compassion is something—there is a sense of responsibility. That’s why I always try to share my own experience, whether they accept or not. It is something different, that’s a different matter. But I do feel if I, some people, if I explain something according to my own experience, at least some people might get some new idea. And also, you see, regarding the relation between China and Tibet. So long, you see, fear, the atmosphere of fear, remain there and distrust atmosphere there, very difficult. Impossible to develop mutual understanding, mutual respect, mutual trust. The time has come, you see. Their side must show the genuine conciliatory attitude. Now the best thing, you see: first reduce their military forces, and eventually create zone of peace. Then this is the best way, concrete, or—how to say—the convincing attitude towards Tibetan with trust to you. You see, here in India, you see, several occasions, you see, I’m telling you, you see, people. Now we should have the democratic government, while I’m alive. You see, that practice must implement, must materialize.
So I really want to be just a simple Buddhist monk. In a way, it’s a selfish motivation. Then I got genuine freedom. I don’t want to have this kind of a different title. There is in my heart, the service always available—among Tibetan, in any human community. If I can do something, I am always available. So long as my last breathing. I’m ready wherever I can serve, including Chinese. As a human brother, sister, then it’s official title, as a temple leader of Tibet, or head of the government, or the even, you see, leader of spiritual, that kind of is the title. I feel sometimes that also is another, you see, hindrance, for have a closer relation with different people.
Is it not a problem that war is not only an accepted part of human behavior, and human history, but perhaps even an acceptable part? That going to war is one of the things that excites and delights human beings?
Bohm
I think that people would be ready to change now. I think the situation is changing. But there is still a residue of all this, all the feelings, and at the same time a tremendous incompetence in many ways. I would like to add that I think we should forgive the debts of the Third World, because they are making the situation impossible there. I mean, it’s a very elementary point. They would probably be able to take care of themselves if they didn’t have to pay back all that interest.
We have got to change our way of thinking. You see, over many thousands of years we have had a fragmentary way of thinking: of breaking everything up into nations and religions and families and people as if they were independent—when they are not. You see, it’s a false, incoherent way of thinking. We see reality according to our thought, and therefore thought is constantly participating—both in giving shape and form and figuration to ourselves, and to the whole of reality. But thought doesn’t know this. Thought is thinking that it isn’t doing anything. I think this is really where the difficulty is: that we have got to see that thought is part of this reality. So the first thing we have to do in the long run is to look at our whole way of thinking, which has developed over so many thousands of years. I don’t think it was the original way of thinking of the human race at all, but for many complex reasons it came about.
Now, that means that people have to participate to make a cooperative effort to have a dialogue—a real dialogue—in which we will not merely exchange opinions, but actually listen deeply to the views of other people without resistance. And we cannot do this if we hold to our own opinion and resist the other. It doesn’t mean we should accept the other, but we have to be able to look at all the opinions suspended, as it were, in front of us without carrying them out, without suppressing them.
The excitement has always been, you know, for the separation, and checking out the differences. And that’s why you said that competition thing. And I think that there is a new conscience of realizing that this world has its own limitations. I mean, this is not heaven. I mean, it’s not hell either, but you know, this is not heaven. And this is the only place that we can be on.
Bohm
Yes, well, people are beginning to realize that if we don’t begin to do this, we won’t have anything. I mean, we can destroy the whole thing within, say, a hundred years or so.
Yes. But this wholeness—this new consciousness, this wholeness—is that something that you can only glimpse? Perhaps in—as you might have a glimpse of heaven—or is it something scientific? I mean, can you think your way through it?
Bohm
Not really completely. Wholeness is an attitude or an approach, but it can be given a scientific realization, you see, because of relativity and quantum theory. We can, if we wish, look on the world as a whole. See, I began, more or less, accepting the ideas of Niels Bohr. I wrote a book called Quantum Theory based on that. I was feeling that the question really was: what is the nature of reality? You see, Bohr’s view is based on an epistemology of saying that, oh, we can discuss this; our knowledge of reality. And I felt dissatisfied with that, finally. Well, because it did not give any clear concept of reality, you see. It only discussed what could be observed and measured. Now, if you said, okay, that’s all it is, then we would say we will accept it on that basis. But then we would raise the question: what can we say? Well, reality would mean something that would have some existence independently of being known. You see? To say it might be that we would know it, but it did not require that we know it in order to exist. Now, it was difficult to see how this could be sustained, finally, in Bohr’s view.
Now, I tried to get some idea of what might be the process which was implied by the mathematics of the quantum theory. And this process is what I call enfoldment: that the mathematics itself suggests a movement in which everything, in which any particular element of space, may have a field which unfolds into the whole, and the whole enfolds into it. So, you have this movement, and I call this the implicate (or enfolded) order, which unfolds into the explicate order where everything is separate. Now, the implicate order, everything is internally related to everything. Everything contains everything, right? So everybody has many experiences of this implicate order. The most obvious one is ordinary consciousness, where consciousness enfolds everything that you know or see. And now, it doesn’t merely enfold the universe, but also you act according to that content. So therefore, you are internally related to the whole in this sense. You act according to your consciousness of the whole. So, you’re not acting mechanistically in the sense of being pushed and pulled by objects in the surroundings, but rather, according to your consciousness of them, you act. So if you’re not conscious of them, you cannot act intelligently toward them. So consciousness is really our most immediate experience of this implicate order. You may think of nets of consciousness that are finer and finer, or we may think of capturing finer and finer aspects of the implicate order.
I think there’s an intelligence that’s implicit there, you see—to say that a kind of intelligence unfolds. The source of intelligence is not necessarily in the brain, you see—the ultimate source of it—but much more enfolded into the whole. Now, the question of whether you want to call it God, that depends on what you mean by the word, you see. Because taking it as a personal God might restrict it in some way.
I think science has begun to replace religion as the major source of the world view. And therefore, if science takes a fragmentary world view, it will have a profound effect on consciousness.
But science is always seen as measurement. Is that no longer true?
Bohm
Well, science is whatever people make of it. You see, science has changed over the ages, and it’s different now from a few hundred years ago, and it could be different again. Now, there’s no intrinsic reason why science must necessarily be measurement. This is another historical development which has come about over the past few centuries. It’s entirely contingent and not absolutely necessary.
And when Einstein produced his special theory—which the Times newspaper of London dismissed as being nonsense—was he moving towards wholeness?
Bohm
Yes, he definitely was. He moved eventually toward a field theory where everything was one field, all fields merging. So it was a step toward wholeness—although not, you know, it was a limited step. But still, it was the beginning.
And if we get to wholeness, are we then in heaven? I mean, where else is there to go?
Bohm
We’ll never get there. It’s not a place you can get. The wholeness, I say, is a kind of attitude or an approach to the whole of life. It’s a way, if we can have a coherent approach to reality, then reality will respond coherently to us. But nature has been tremendously affected by our way of thinking on the Earth. Nature is now being destroyed. There’s very little left on the Earth which wasn’t affected by how we were thinking.
And if we have coherence, in what way will our behavior be seen to be different?
Bohm
Well, we will produce the results we intend rather than the results we don’t intend. That’s the first big change. Then we will be more orderly, harmonious—you know, we will be happier, I think, if we put all that in there. But the major source of unhappiness is that we are incoherent, and therefore producing results that we don’t really want—and then trying to overcome them or we keep on producing them. The question is: what is the real origin of consciousness?
That’s exactly the case. Where did it come from? Was there a time when there was no consciousness?
Bohm
Well, I don’t think it originates in time. You see, as I think, it’s a potential of the whole universe. Wholeness will arise between us all in participation rather than separately.
But if you went as a hermit into a cave—
Bohm
Well, you still have nature.
That’s true.
Bohm
We are internally related to everything, not externally related. Consciousness is an internal relationship to the whole. We take in the whole and we act toward the whole. And whatever we have taken in determines basically what we are. I’ve read somewhere that the hunter-gatherers would get all their food in about fifteen hours a week, and we have not yet approached anything like that. But, believing that aside, I think we need to set aside some time for this. We need a period of emptiness and quiet where we can go into this. It doesn’t mean that we should do nothing else.
There is the creative artist, in fact, finding a way to this whole thing, and to the truth, without having to study the physics or the economics and the…. Is he, in his very act of creating, finding the truth? Are you?
This search for nirvana or something is making me sick.
You don’t want it? You don’t want to go to heaven?
I love and breathe it, and nobody could pay me more to stop working, and nobody could pay me more to make me work harder. So I don’t know what that is about. It comes natural. I mean, if you’re an artist—I mean, he’s an artist, I’m an artist, and there are many other artists here, you know, that it’s a special moment that only happens when you allow it. And you can’t stop it.
Apparently nature endows people with—certain people—with special creative functions or ability, and it is the same in spirituality.
What do you think? Is this like in the genes or something?
No, I mean, it concentrates. Look, it concentrates. It’s like, you know, you have a prophet. Why is Jesus Christ a prophet? Because everything—
We don’t need Jesus. We’ve got his holiness here.
Nature or consciousness, or whatever, at this moment is concentrated in somebody. It’s concentrated in you, it’s concentrated in a Bohm—in some particular way. So you don’t have to think about this being equally spread around. That is not necessary, you know. I don’t think that everybody has to be creative to be happy—at least as far as I can see.
What do they have to, to be happy?
Well, many people are just happy by existing without being poor and so on. You know, I walk out in the streets and I suddenly realize that nobody really cares what I write or think, because most people care about other things, you know. 99% of their life consists in being happy about very simple things. And they don’t have to read my books or see your pictures or read Bohm or listen to the Dalai Lama to be happy. They know what it is, you see. They’re endowed with it. But there are certain personalities through which nature moves ahead. It has—it always has been that way. Otherwise, you know, you just can’t develop.
Gyatso
I think actually these things are very, very difficult to make, you see—sorry—generalization. There are so many different people, variety. So some people, I think by birth, you see, very easy to learn something, and very creative nature. Some not. And some cases, without much study, you see, the person becomes something very creative, very intelligent. Some people. I mean, there’s no need to explain, isn’t it? I think reality, of course, it just holds this one, interdependent. You see, without, you see, in order to exist something, one thing, one particular thing, you see, without other factor, it cannot exist. So, you see, everything related. So, in reality and wholeness.
Now another question: whether individual can realize that or not? And whether individual really necessary to achieve some higher, I have to say, I think, higher state of consciousness and happier to know that reality or not. Again, depend on individual people. If, you see, in order to achieve something, in order to achieve progress, if we have to know reality, whole thing—impossible. Nobody can, because nobody can know the whole, the totality. That’s impossible. Of course, Buddhists, you see, we believe when you get enlightenment, then suppose we know everything. But that’s something different, different question, isn’t it?
But if you can’t grasp, if you can’t understand the totality, can you only understand a bit of it? I thought you felt that we could, somehow or other, you could grasp the totality.
Bohm
I didn’t mean to say that. No, I didn’t.
Now I’m putting words in your mind.
Bohm
I didn’t say we can grasp the totality. We can have a feeling for the whole, and we can have the attitude of not being restricted, not restricting ourselves to parts, but allowing our consciousness to be based on the whole of whatever we can experience, and turn toward the whole of reality as far as we can, and go from there to the parts. You see, the parts are seen within the whole, rather than begin with the parts and put them together like a machine, you see. So that is really what I meant to say.
When you understand totality, you become a totalitarian.
Bohm
Yes.
You are unique then.
No, that’s the opposite.
Like, when you talk about grasping something, I think you’re touching something that is going to vaporize, disappear, and lose all of its spirituality.
So what experience, then, can you have?
You can have this, this.
And that’s all?
No, there’s everything that you can grasp without destroying it. But the important things you actually can’t touch.
But you know they are there?
How else?
So how do you know?
By faith.
You believe in it. Ah, but you believe in it.
It is there.
But belief can be something like faith.
No, belief is like grasping. If you have to believe something to believe it, well, then you already are making a deal. But if you know something is there without being able to touch it, then it’s much more valuable.
But there must be evidence.
No, there doesn’t have to be evidence. Do you want a lawyer?
Bohm
I think that you have to be sensitive to just the question of delusion. That is, is there incoherence? You have to be sensitive to incoherence. Now, delusion arises when we are not sensitive to incoherence; when we overlook it. There’s no guarantee that we can succeed in anything. If anybody claims to have evidence, it’s always limited and you can’t trust it either. So in this game, there’s no guarantee at all. We can’t trust anybody to tell us about these things.
I think that we’re going in entirely the wrong direction looking for coherence. I think that the world was not designed to make any sense whatsoever. And I think it’s been very good at it.
It has to be diverse and it has to be anarchic.
And original. Original to each person.
Bohm
We have a tremendous resistance to acknowledging incoherence. People are constantly saying everything is alright. There’s nothing to worry about. This is all very coherent. Totalitarian regimes are constantly doing that, saying everything is wonderful. And so that’s the key point: to attend to incoherence—first acknowledge it, and then begin to do something about it.
It has to go in waves, I must say. It has to go in waves, you know. Time—
Everything is in waves, he says.
There’s a time for anarchy and there’s a time for order. Order creates anarchy and anarchy creates order. And it goes in waves.
The waves create erosion.
Bohm
I think that the incoherence has become more dangerous because of the scale of our society and because of technology. We have all sorts of dangers, such as nuclear war, biological war, chemical war, destruction of nature. Probably we can think of four or five others which are brought about by our power. You see now, the greater power we have, the greater we need coherence. The question to my mind is: is the human being capable of dealing with this situation which he himself has produced?
Gyatso
I think we all, you see—I think this comes from human being. You see, whether scientists, or whether economists, or artists, we are born, we are same, same human being. And I think it’s the same desire, you see, same inner feeling. Then, you see, follow a different profession way. And then sometimes, you see—I’m sorry—now, you see, sometimes people call you specialist. So when you become specialist, then you are, for some outlook, something become very small. So, you see, that time I think there is danger. You see, to forget about the wholeness. The things are, everything is related. So if something wrong here, it effect there. So everything, you see, I think, is pursued by desire of happiness. So that’s the basic human nature. Now when we return on that level, we can solve this problem. This is what I feel. So this is what I usually call spiritual. Not necessarily something, it’s a dogmatism. Without accepting or believe, you see, this complicated thing. Just to simply be a goodhearted person.
Now, I was thinking, when you talked about the wholeness, I was thinking about the necessity of a new world order. We need a new world order. And the world order is not one country being a policeman. But the world order is, hopefully, as a result of the end of a false competition between communism and the other kinds of society. We can have a world order in which we all together—we in America, in Europe, in Japan, an Tibet, and China, and all the other countries, and all the animals. It’s they who provide us with life, isn’t it so? Well, there are no plants, there wouldn’t be any life. We have to think about these things in, really, in the spirit of wholeness, and also in the spirit of his holiness.
Capra
In patriarchal societies people frequently talk about human nature when they really mean male human nature. That’s a very frequent confusion. And I think this discussion this morning about competition is a good example of a question that we cannot expect it to be solved by an all-male panel.
If you give up the idea of competition, then there is no difference.
You mean to imply that there’s no competition between women?
I put the question to you: is there a difference between the matriarchal and the patriarchal society?
Only in Italy.
Capra
Well, the question is more subtle. The whole subject is much more subtle than that.
Bohm
He can’t hear you.
Of course it’s subtle.
Capra
And it would take some time, and it would take half the panel being women, to really go into it. It has no hope we can solve it in this context.
We’re running into a—Lawrence Weiner—we’re running into a major difficulty here. My distinguished colleagues on the panel, and most of the audience, have taken for granted from the beginning and the inception of this symposium that there is already an agreed upon idea of what is harmony. This agreed upon idea of what everybody is accepting for being polite, being conventional, and so on and so forth, has inherently within its structure a problem about the relationships of biological males and biological females. And until we start to question essentially what the results of the life’s work of David Bohm is, what the results of the life’s work of all of our distinguished panelists are, which is that there is at any given time four or five simultaneous realities that are not hierarchical, but are dangerous to some members of the society. We’re not going to get anywhere.
But if culture—to use your definition—if culture is shared meaning, hasn’t that sharing to be universal?
Bohm
It has to be. I mean, evidently, we have a split which has developed over thousands of years, and we are not understanding each other now as to what is meant by order and harmony. So we can’t proceed very far. I don’t assume that you want total destruction or disharmony and everything going to pieces. Now, I see the importance of coherence—that if we produce results that we don’t intend in a consistent way, constantly, then I see that I don’t want to go on with that. You see? That seems wrong. Now, do you agree on that point?
So wholeheartedly agree.
Bohm
Yes. So I say we need coherence—not perfect coherence, but to move toward coherence.
But can that coherence be developed in some way other than the means of balance that we’ve been forced into within contemporary society? That’s the problem.
Bohm
Well, by all means, let’s try.
There is no way that we can all speak Chinese or Russian and be able to address each other. But I think that that is the direction that everything should go in. And maybe through some of his holiness that we would be able to feel these reactions, and language would not be a difficulty.
But life is not problems, anyway. Problems have solutions. That’s where politicians get into terrible troubles, and they talk about the final solution, and then we all pay a price. Life is about difficulties which you try to overcome.
No, it isn’t.
I thought it was all part of—you see, this is not… you speak a lot about this, again, as the same acceptance of a worldview. You’re speaking in terms of if somebody questions the use of something, and they are a member of society, they’re complaining. They’re not complaining, they’re just questioning the use of something. And we’re not talking about solutions, and we’re almost trying to find how to use what you have here, which is a resource of people who have accomplished something with a short span of life.
If you can describe a problem—Lawrence, if you can describe a problem, you have one.
Yes, that’s quite true.
You know? And I think that we should stop thinking about the world as a series of problems.
Bohm
Now, if we say we’ve got a practical problem, this is going to limit us. Because there’s an assumption behind every practical problem, right? And that may stop us. So, see, suppose we say we want to communicate, but we are not going to set up a problem. A long, long time ago I read about an anthropologist who studied some North American Indians at the primitive stage; at hunter-gathers, and he said what they did is time to time they got around in a circle, everybody, and they just talked and talked, talked all equals. And they made no decisions or anything. They just stopped, and everybody seemed to know what to do, right? You see, it’s clear what happened that they, by doing this constantly, they understood each other.
The faster, the quicker the people in the developed countries are taught to understand that it is really in their interest to reduce poverty in the world, the faster our planet will be able to solve that issue. And if it is delayed, this may become out of control, and the planet will not be able to survive—not because of new player weapons, it will not be able to survive because of other things. There has to be a diversity of societies which are, all of them, striving towards this goal.
I had had this idea about Rocky International, which is the Rauschenberger overseas cultural interchange, which is devoted to peace and communication, with video, with photographs, with art, and one-to-one contact. I mean, we were in Russia, and 15,000–20,000 people queued up a day. We were in Tibet, an extraordinary event. Something that they had never seen. It was the first exhibition in Tibet. In China we had the entire National Museum, Artists’ Communication. And when you confront head-on with people who have different languages, the video, the photographs, and the images within the paintings in response to their various cultures, and then you pass that on to another country, you can’t really dislike somebody who you haven’t seen, but you agree with or understand. Rocky goes to countries that are basically sensitive areas.
Bohm
I feel that creativity is essential, not only for science, but for the whole of life. You see, if you get stuck in a mechanical, repetitious order, then it will degenerate. I think that’s one of the problems that every civilization has got stuck in a certain repetition. The creative energy has gradually died away, you see, and that’s why the civilization died. You see, many civilizations vanished not only because of external pressure, but also because internally they decayed.
Gyatso
Up to now, usually I call the mother-planet, which remains without tolerance. Now the mother-planet is facing the limitation. So therefore it is showing us some kind of warning. So therefore, now I think the reality, the situation, the reality itself, now telling us: human being or humanity must work together with sort of common ground, or common aim, and with sense of responsibility.