“Dalai Lama Scientist” takes a look at commonalities between Buddhism and Western science. Courtesy photo

Maui-based scientist Gary Greenberg and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Tom Vendetta are collaborating for an entertaining afternoon on Oct. 19 at the ProArts Playhouse, presenting the multimedia talk “From LUCA to Aloha: The Evolution of Life on Earth” and the screening of the documentary “Dalai Lama Scientist.”

They previously collaborated in 2024 for the talk on “The Adaptation of Cellular Consciousness,” and the screening of the “Hubble 3D” documentary.

An inspiring multimedia lecture, “From LUCA to Aloha: The Evolution of Life on Earth” traces the epic journey of life on Earth from LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor, to the emergence of modern humans and the responsibilities we now hold as stewards of our planet.

“Consciousness began with a cell called LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor that came into being four billion years ago,” Greenberg explained. “Every speck of life on Earth, whether it’s a bacteria or a plant or an animal, all originated from this single cell from four billion years ago, and it has never stopped dividing and evolving. We’re all descendants of LUCA.”

Grounded in innovative science and woven with Hawaiian wisdom, Greenberg’s presentation unfolds through guiding Hawaiian principles such as mālama (to care for), aloha ʻaina (love and respect for the land), and kuleana (responsibility). By blending evolutionary biology with Native Hawaiian values, the talk offers a powerful reflection on our shared origins and the sacred duty to care for the Earth and each other.

After earning a Ph.D. in developmental biology from University College London during the 1990s, Greenberg developed high-definition, three-dimensional light microscopes. More recently, he has focused his microscopes on common objects, such as grains of sand, flowers and food. His images can be seen in the books “A Grain of Sand: Nature’s Secret Wonder,” “The Secrets of Sand,” and “Florotica: Revealing the Sensuality of the Micro World.”

“Dalai Lama Scientist” is an uplifting documentary about the Dalai Lama’s meetings with scientists from around the world to find commonalities among Buddhist science and Western science to promote health, understanding and compassion for all. “I got permission from the producers to screen it,” said Vendetti. “It’s primarily a fundraiser for ProArts.”

The film covers the Dalai Lama’s early days of discovery. We see him as a boy, dismantling small mechanical toys and then trying to put them back together again. In time he met legendary physicists David Bohm and Carl von Weizsäcker, who became his own science teachers.

“What really fascinated me being a psychologist was he talks about controlling negative emotions and things like that in contributing to good health,” Vendetti explained. “There’s neuropsychology mentioned and also quantum physics. It’s just fascinating, and the connection here is Gary Greenberg being a scientist and the Dalai Lama being very interested in the scientific world.”

The former director of Mental Health Kokua, Vendetti, just published the book “The Older I get, the Bigger the Question Mark.” He was inspired to write following the death of Kris Kristofferson. “It’s what triggered this,” he said. “I just wanted to write something. Kris narrated my first film, ‘Journey Inside Tibet,’ and we worked on a couple of other projects together. It hit me hard when he passed.”

An accomplished psychologist and filmmaker, he has made significant contributions to understanding mental health and the rich cultural tapestries of countries around the world.

“It starts out with my delinquent years and hopefully progressing to where I am now,” he said. “As a psychologist working with the mentally ill, I was always trying to ground people in what I considered reality, and then, traveling in the Himalayan mountains, all of these so-called what you could term magical things were appearing that I couldn’t really explain. But then I was able to look at it more from a spiritual side. So right now I just feel much more spiritual, and also there’s more contentment in my life in terms of not having to always ground people in reality and be in that state of mind.”

Vendetti’s latest doc, “Awakened From Darkness,” was screened on PBS Hawaii on Sept. 25. It follows Maui resident Sam Kong on frequent trips back to his Cambodian homeland. The story began 20 years ago when Vendetti took 20 mentally ill people to camp on Lanai.

“Sam was standing just staring at the sunset one evening and he said, ‘I feel like killing myself every day.'” Not knowing if his family was still alive in Cambodia, Vendetti helped raise funds for Kong to return. “His mother was 80-some years old, and we put ads on radio and television and the newspaper, and she heard it on her transistor radio. She comes pulling up on a moped, and they start embracing, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd.”

After raising money to build a school in his village, “about eight months ago, I took Sam back to Cambodia because he’s thinking about retiring there now. He’s doing so well, and he has a loving family. It was just so gratifying to see all of this, and the documentary covers over 20 years of this relationship.”

“From LUCA to Aloha: The Evolution of Life on Earth” and the “Dalai Lama Scientist” is presented at 2 p.m. Oct. 19 at the ProArts Playhouse. The evening is a benefit for the Playhouse. Tickets range from $11-$21.