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The International Owl Sign McMurtry College students Christopher Liu ’13 (blue shirt) and Trent Navran ’15 (green shirt) spent part of the summer in Nepal and India studying Tibetan Buddhism, meditation and yoga practices. Their project was supported by the Dr. John E. Parish Fellowship, a Wiess College-sponsored fellowship that is open to all undergraduates. Navran and Liu first flew to Nepal. “We mountain biked for two days across the Nepal country, at one point discovering a beautiful monastery at the peak of a mountain,” Liu said. Then they made their way to the Nyingmapa Wishfulfilling Center, a Buddhist monastery located in the Kathmandu Valley. There, the two cognitive science majors learned about and practiced meditation while living and working alongside the young monks in residence. “We were able to spend two hours a day with the head lama receiving instruction on the teachings and practices of Tibetan Buddhism,” Navran said. As they were about to leave the monastery to study the practice of yoga in a South Indian ashram, the Rice students taught the monks how to make an Owl sign.