Cultivating the Inner Conditions for Genuine Happiness

this program is brought to you by emory university i'm going to turn the panel over to one of the great architects of interdisciplinary and entered this religious conversation on this campus dean Bobby Paul Bobby as a chair of the anthropology department to pluralize that department and made it much richer and opened it up into conversation with a variety of different disciplines and schools of thought on the campus he then was an architect of the Institute for liberal arts which is one of our shining examples of true interdisciplinary study he then became Dean of Emory College and in that capacity opened a number of new channels of discourse across traditional silos and was particularly instrumental in building up Buddhist studies on the campus and building up the Emory Tibet exchange and so it's particularly apt that Dean Paul is the person who introduces this final panel on the pursuit of happiness in Buddhist perspective will you give join me in giving a round of applause to Bobbie Paul thank you very much John it's a tremendous pleasure and honor for me to be addressing you and to introduce maturity cow I've also been asked to just say a couple of minutes to contextualize this afternoon's event and so I will just make a couple of very brief comments one of them is that Buddhism like every other major religion is not a unified belief system there are many trends within it far too many for me to begin to even outline what some of them are but the Tibetan tradition with which to which the Dalai Lama belongs and with which Emery is therefore affiliated is one that's in the Mahayana tradition that who was great addition to the study of Buddhism was an emphasis on compassion so that the idea of cultivating compassion that compassion is something that can be taught that can be learned that can be cultivated that can be developed is something that is a particular particularly appropriate in this school of thought so when listening to dr. Eric are you will understand that he has been steeped in a school of thought that brought to the Buddhist tradition a particular emphasis on the importance of compassion Buddhism has always been concerned about as all the other great religions are with the care and salvation of the individual person but the emphasis on developing the capacity for compassion is something that I think is particularly the mahayana school and especially to the tibetan branch of it so i think i would like to emphasize that and that makes it particularly appropriate i think that cory keys is going to speak about this because he represents a new wave within contemporary scholarship that emphasizes the fact that happiness is not simply the absence of something but it is a positive thing in itself that can be nurtured developed and cultivated in much the same way that is that there's a parallel here whereas sometimes and this is I admit a an oversimplification that Buddhism can be seen as a via negativa that is it as a removal of obstacles to to simply leave what's left over the notion of happiness as something that is just the absence of sorrow or the absence of pain is an idea that is being contested now with the notion that there really is something to happiness as a substantive something just as there is to compassion and they're closely related that can be developed so I think it's very important that Cori will be speaking about this and then the other thing I want to mention that puts this in context that is related to the presence of Professor Perry and the fact that this is taking place in a law school indeed has to do with the institutionalization and the contextualization as the the logo for this conference says our own declaration of independence places the pursuit of happiness at the center of American life and the question of what is happiness and what is the pursuit of it of course is crucial but also the question of what role does the state play what role does government play what role does law play what role do institutions play in promoting or enabling or mandating or commanding happiness and in that respect I would just mention that the Mahayana tradition that Tibet represents with all its faults and we can all admit that Tibet in its traditional days had many flaws as a society but it did when it collected taxes didn't put them into nuclear weapons it put them mainly into the support of a monastic system the point of which was to develop compassion and through compassion widespread happiness whether it achieved that or not is another question about the either the sheer fact that you would have a government that would collect your taxes in order to make people happy is something that I think we should give serious thought to and it's not by accident that the one Buddhist country that exists as an independent nation today Bhutan that is ruled by a Tibetan Buddhist King and has a majority population of Tibetan Buddhists which footnote has led to severe ethnic strife there so that Bhutan itself is far from an exemplary picture of the ideal Society but nonetheless it is the one country that instead of basing its notion of progress and success on the gross national product has based it on gross national happiness and the idea being of course what is this state of the affairs of its citizens are they well cared for do they have medical attention when they need it do they have adequate facilities for just to live and to carry on their work the notion of placing happiness as the goal of society rather than say profit gives us another alternative and this comes from the Buddhist tradition so I'm very curious to hear also about the question of how does happiness relate to the state and to the government and to its laws so having placed that in context I would like to now introduce our main speaker today who is much Ely cow who has lived in the Himalayan region for 40 years I was born in France and obtained his PhD degree in cell genetics at the Institute still under the great Francois Jacob that Nobel laureate but instead of going on to an academic career he entered a monastic career and has lived in India Bhutan and Nepal studying with some of the greatest living teachers of that tradition including kanji or Apache and the dildo can say Rinpoche and as I just learned from the Rocha Krupa che-hoo I also knew when we were happened to both be in the region in the 1960s so I feel a kinship there he's the author of many books including I think the best-known the monk and the philosopher a dialogue with his father the French philosopher Jean Francois Ravel which has been translated into 21 languages in addition the quantum and the Lotus a dialogue with the astrophysicist tritanus want wom happiness a guide to developing life's most important skills and why meditate he's also a renowned photographer and for many decades has been photographing the spiritual masters landscapes and people of the Himalayas he's the author in photography of journey to enlightenment Tibet an inner journey Buddhist Kim in Alaia motionless journey and Bhutan land of peace is a member of the mind and life Institute an organization dedicated to collaborative research between scientists and Buddhist scholars and meditators and he's engaged in the research on the effect of mind training and meditation on the brain at various institutions throughout the USA and Europe he now lives in Chechen monastery in Nepal and I should add that he donates all proceeds from his books and much of his time to 40 humanitarian projects including clinics schools orphanages elderly people's homes bridges vocational trainings throughout Asia he received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian works and so it was with great pleasure that I introduce to you much yogi cow thank you so much lovely to discover past connection and I'm very impatient to hear what of you but I'm told I have to say something to start with and so and also I was told instead of 15 minutes it might be more like 15 minutes so it's not far I hope we won't get to overdose with happiness so yes it's a you know some I will start with the friendship paracin intellectuals they hate happiness so that's why I diving to write a book because this wonderful book of His Holiness the art of happiness which was a best-seller in France despite having no reviews at all was trashed down by few intellectuals it was so silly to say that the goal of life is happiness and when so then I started to respond a little bit and I thought well this is a nice subject and maybe we should explore that because how can it be that is the other guy is a brilliant intellectual very good writer much better than me and then it's only nurse of course is such a extraordinary mind so how can two great minds have totally different totally opposite views on happiness there's something basic misunderstanding so when I wrote this little book in the beginning it was sort of a reply and then as I thought the political aspect would not be so interesting so I was more in details but I did address some of the issue raised and then I hope I hope that this person would reply in a positive way but then he wrote a review it was only in France you can have a national debate on happiness exists or not you know it was huge posters in order to big magazines this and then he wrote a reply called the dirty works of happiness you know stop bugging us that we must be happy you know we are so unhappy and and that's how we are and we love it and so forth so anyway but that makes you understand that and then the the thing you hear offer often exists it cannot be a definition of happiness because there's so many ways to achieve happiness I mean that's exactly the way you find your own happiness so this cannot be there will not be it's impossible well I think it needs to be examined it is quite true if you look throughout the history of IDs you couldn't make two Collins and find every definition and find just the opposite happiness is only in the present moment and someone else would oh no it's not just is only about evoking nice memories of the past imagining the future and so forth and so forth and then Bergson the French philosopher summarized that by saying that all the great thinkers of humanity have left the definition of happiness in the vague so that everyone could define their own terms well if as its own as de lama says and Aristotle said happiness is the goal of goals that means everything else is in order to achieve fulfilment well-being sense of flourishing but that itself is a fully sort of it's a goal in itself then if we leave it in the vague then it's a bit troublesome because if it's just a secondary thing in life you could leave it in the way but if it's the goal of goals and if you don't know at all what it is and then it's like shooting arrows with blindfold in the dark sometime you hit the target but not even know why so then you speak of magic moments of grace fleeting moment of happiness and we don't know why it happened why is not remaining with you so it seems that it is worthwhile to try to try to little bit investigate because even those magic moments if someone says walking in the snow and other stars now at the magic moment but if you think about it those magic moments have some some characteristics some some qualities you could look within and say well that was a moment well all the inner conflicts were sort of suspended or vanished I felt in harmony with nature with myself with others so those are qualities that you might think about and maybe they don't have to be just magic maybe they could be cultivated as skills so it would be it would seem that to better understand the inner workings of the mechanism of happiness and suffering would be helpful if is the goal of goals and especially because at least according to the Buddhist view we all yearn for happiness no one wakes up in the morning thinking may suffer the whole day and if possible my whole life and whether we say like we are not interested in happiness like French intellectuals and write a book against it even that anyway is not to make himself and others suffer that person thinks that is bringing something something better for Society for clarification of ideals so it's making a useful contribution and if you say that no happiness doesn't matter but their minimum other things more important like creativity like the pursuit of justice and so forth but you might say that's the way you find your own flourishing and fulfilling so then but Buddhist teachings said yes we all yearn for the freedom from suffering but it seems that we are running toward it we all would like to achieve happiness but it's similar were turning our back to it so mental confusion anyway is what prevents us from achieving this flourishing basic ignores which is not simply a lack of information like not knowing the telephone directory by heart but a misconstruing reality a fundamental lack of adequate with reality been at odds with reality will cause lot of dysfunctioning that brings suffering so then is it may be useful to see what are the common confusion between happiness and other states of mind so one of the most common one of course is to say all happiness will be endless succession of pleasurable feelings or exposition of experiences that sounds more like a recipe for exhaustion than happiness but this is a reason for that and if you look at the components of a pleasurable sensation it is highly dependent on time circunstances places in a way it's highly vulnerable to the change of the outer condition and it is also something that is fleeting and changing in nature it can be very pleasant a moment the neutral and aversive if you take hot shower after a walk in the in a cold morning the winter morning in the forest it's like bliss but if you had to stay twenty-four hours under this hot shower it will not be so wonderful if you hear the most beautiful piece of bar and if you favorite music you might decide to hear it three times but if it's again twenty-four hours the same one in your hair this becomes so it has a tendency to exhaust itself like a candle it's also something that you might that doesn't radiate out outwardly you might feel a strong pleasurable sensation where everyone is in great suffering around you and not care for it so there's no sort of glow about just feeling a pleasant sensation so now if we look at happiness in the way that the Buddhism defines it it defines it not as a mere feeling it defines it as a way of being and a way of being that is not just one thing but the result of coming together of a cluster of human qualities certain human qualities and then if you you can you know try to investigate them but but basically there are quite dominant ones like a turistic love compassion sense of inner peace and inner confidence in a freedom freedom from compulsive thoughts from hatred from mental toxins that undermine happiness so all those together if you compare that with pleasure then you can see that it is my the influences of quantity other conditions but basically it's not dependent on them and it is something that the more you experience it the more it depends what your understanding of it and you're familiar ization with it so it it becomes deeper and more stable instead of being highly vulnerable to outer conditions it give you the resources to deal with those outer conditions and with the absence of mind of of life so in a way we could say that it is an exceptionally healthy state of mind that produced through all kinds of emotions and give you the resources to deal with whatever comes your way so in that sense paradoxically it might even be that it remains even in what we normally we will call an unpleasant sensation like sadness if genuine happiness is made of the coming together and the blossoming of compassion love inner strength inner freedom and so forth if something is very sad you might still be filled with compassion you must still retain the sense of direction in life sense of meaning sense of purpose you might be returned you in your freedom in the sense that you are not so overwhelmed that from sadness you just collapse into despair the sense of the quality of remaining alive and sense of that there's a sense of fulfillment to common life's can remain so even is in the face of a very tragic event sadness can be it doesn't need to destroy happiness although certainly it will be incompatible with what we call a pleasant state of mind so in that sense then we can also see that all those qualities can be considered as skills that means we have them to a certain extent but maybe that potential is I mean we can give we cannot ascribe numbers but imagine like 10% of your capacity for altruism 10% of your capacity to deal with afflictive emotions so there's an incredible faculty or potential for making that to flourish so another usual confusion is to instinctively put all our hopes and fears outside ourselves we have this idea that if I had all that definitely I'll be happy and then we hear of people who precisely have everything to be happy and there are all the other conditions seems to be perfect and they have as much wealth as they would want they are may be powerful and successful and famous and on top of that they might be you know beautiful physical appearance that everyone admires and then one day you hear although this guy is going to a deep depression and you hear and you think what's wrong with this guy I find all that of course I'll be happy but it simply shows that it's something else we know that however important other conditions can be and this not to neglect them we all want to live in suitable conditions in freedom of access to education be good health and a long life and harmonious relations with others and of course when it's not those conditions are a lacking in this world we should do everything that we can to remedy to poverty feminine and others adverse conditions and Wars and conflict yet increasingly we know that the way we translate the outer condition into inner experience can easily overwrite those outer conditions we know of people who are totally depressed in a little paradise and others who keep the joy of water vivre even in the midst of difficulties his holiness himself once gave a striking image about that he we were in Portugal and what he had seen a lot of construction work going on and when he gave a public talk in the evening he said well if you move for the first time as the new owner of a high-tech luxurious flat on the hundredth floor of a skyscraper but we are totally depressed and destroyed within all you are going to look for is a window from which to jump so that was a very striking contrast but it is quite true and so and on top of that if since the other conditions are controlled on this other condition is quite limited its suffered temporary and it is often illusory and on top of that if we decide that this is the outer condition that must be so that I will be happy we must remember that the universe is not the Med or the catalog for our desires so if we were to follow some of the definitions of happiness I think it's kind to say that happiness will be the complete fulfillment of all our desire in duration quality and quantity so if that's your definition yes it is true you just have to throw the idea of happiness in the garbage bin that is never going to happen so but fortunately in a way since the the way you experience things can override the outer conditions however important they might be then you can think what are the inner conditions for genuine happiness so that is a matter of observation of honest investigation what are the mental states that makes me feel the sense of flourishing what are those who clearly undermined we might feel that a burst of strong anger is justified or even sometimes people will try to justify hatred but nobody deep with infants feels sort of good and harmonious about feeling hatred you might say that jealousy is part of life and it will be boring without jealousy but if we were saying okay let's have a weekend to cultivate jealousy and at the end of the week and I promise it will be 50% higher who will come we know instinctively although we said that's what makes a colorful life and all that that somehow will be literally better off without that when we are looking at the beautiful landscape or top of a mountain we don't necessarily regret the feeling of intensity of an emergency room in a hospital or something so there's there's clearly states of mind that contribute that nurture that flourishing and some which are destroying it so we call that mental toxins in the sense that they they poison our happiness and that of others because they induce us to act in certain ways so hatred is one but also obsession arrogance and V and mental confusion for all different kinds of reasons those do not lead to a sense of flourishing on the other hand altruistic love and all those I mentioned compassion sort of inner peace sort of sense of inner freedom and all those the more we experience them and if we have a weekend off to cultivate loving kindness and compassion people feel more inspired as that that's natural but the question is can then happiness in that understanding be cultivated as a skill well first of all yes it is absolutely natural to feel those emotions we have been equipped by evolution to have those strong emotions even the afflictive they have they have a use I mean that jealousy is unpleasant but it's meant to reinforce the cohesion of the couple and so forth anger to quickly overcome obstacles or treta obstacles to what you want and and so forth so they are natural in to every human being and even some people say that we should not touch them because that what makes a unique personality a colorful life a rich life and it would be so boring without any of those and and happiness would be sort of a bland sort of annoying state and good the road that three days of uninterrupted happiness would be so boring it's always the same and the same french director says suffering is so wonderful because it changes all the time is so intense and colorful there's a kind of excitement of this intensity of of suffering but honestly you know again nobody wakes up in the morning thinking he may have suffer so they are part of human nature but the thing getting which is at the out of the Buddhist approach to that is that there are many ways to be part of something it could be intrinsically part of something and then you could never get rid of it we like try to destroy part of yourself oh if you take this bottle of water I hope it's just h2o but you could have medicinal plants in it and then it will have a medicinal effects it could have cyanide in it and then the conference will end as soon as I take a few drops of it but neither the cyanide nor the medicinal plant has changed as to all so they could be part of water it will be poisonous water or curative water but water at such didn't change that's one example that the dilemma often gives about that the basic nature of mind of consciousness that fundamental primary cognitive faculty that allows us to to know everything to have emotions to perceive the outer world to perceive our inner world through memories imagination about the future and so forth all that is made possible by a basic component of basic cognition that is different from inanimate object that has zero cognitive faculty from Buddhist perspective we call that the luminous aspect of mind not I did sort of radiating glows in the dark but the example is quite interesting because if you take a flashlight and you it reveals all the outer world but if you shine the flashlight on the heap of garbage doesn't become dirty if you shine it on the heap of gold doesn't become expensive or precious it just allows to see that so light is not modified by what it eliminates so likewise the Buddhist idea which is also connected with a contemplative approach of the basic nature of mind there that the fundamental pure awareness that is behind every thought behind every emotion is not tainted by the mental construct and the content of the mind select this water it can be purified you can remove the sign and distill it the water filter the water do all kinds of things so this aspect the idea of that it is possible to transform the mental landscape there's a potential for that is at the heart of the notion of mind training and of seeing happiness as something that we can cultivate cultivate in the sense that well once we have identified that certain emotion certain mental states the tremendous new happiness can we find the right antidotes if we do find that altruistic love and other such qualities of nourishing happiness can we then enhance them the whole purpose of so called meditation and the sanskrit words and tibetan words that we translate as buddhist translators as meditation both signify to cultivate to become familiar with so familiar with a new way of being with a new way of perceiving reality like as interdependent as impermanent to become familiar with qualities that or to cultivate qualities for which you have the potential like loving-kindness we all have the potential for it but maybe it's just like and sort of developed and to become familiar with your net the way your mind functions and to become familiar with that tribe that pure awareness that is beneath all the mental constructs so all that is part of a process of familiarization so that's what the spiritual part is about so then comes the whole host of techniques and methods to neutralize or to to dissolve those mental toxins and we can find all kinds of methods that somehow adapted to the different dispositions of mind just to give us a quick example there are direct antidotes because there are some mental state which are mutually incompatible with each other you cannot at the same moment toward the same object or the same person wants to harm and wants to bring good you can maybe to a two consecutive moments in the same way that we cannot which had hand to shake the hand in in a friendly way and give a blow in the face of someone you could do it in two gesture not in one so it simply means that the more you would bring sort of feeling of benevolence within your mind the less at every of these single moments there will be space for the wish to harm so cultivating and direct antidote that neutralize afflicted mental state there could be other ways which is also liked to not to identify with those mental toxins we often do so if I'm very anxious somehow excited is all over my mind I'm sort of one with anxiety but the mind always has the faculty to observe itself is like it doesn't need a second mind it's like the we said that the flame of a candle illuminates everything else but the flame doesn't need a second flame to eliminate itself the mind can know itself so therefore I can have the awareness of anxiety the awareness of jealousy the awareness of anger now instead of being hundred percent anger there is an opening that is the awareness of anger because awareness of anger is not angry is just aware of so the space of mindfulness can grow and then slowly without neither suppressing the anger or the anxiety nor let it explode that process may that is just vanishes away now this is something that happens within few moments is dealing with instantaneous thoughts and emotion in skillful ways but if you repeat that process again and again as those affliction arises what happens there is a two-fold process first of all each time that you do that you would have successfully dealt with that emotional episode not again neither suppressing no letting it completely explode but then by doing that again and again and let it melt away you will gradually erode the very tendency for that to advice me the threshold will be higher it will takes more to make you anxious or angry and it will come less and less often until a certain time where say for each word for instance it becomes inconceivable that you would would consciously willingly wish to harm someone and having spent years and years near creates pressure master like his son as Dalai Lama or considerable share others I cannot fathom that degree of spiritual realization but one thing I am totally convinced that someday Lama is no way that deep within there will be the wished to harm someone that is gone and thus in the hinnies mind is the result of 50 years of hours of practicing compassion and so forth so this is possible so from that perspective happiness conceived as a way of being becomes a skill becomes something that is the result of cultivation so let's describes a part and that's what Buddhism is about the fundamental teaching of the Four Noble Truths is to first to recognize suffering at all levels the obvious suffering that you feel now the causes of suffering that is those mental toxins the even deeper cause of suffering which is the basic ignorant of distorting reality of solidifying reality as permanent as being made of autonomous solid entities and so forth that dysfunction and caused in the end those mental toxins that we can identify those causes that there is a way to remain it to those and there is hard to achieve that through different metals so in a sense if you write a book on just suffering it's not very appealing so the the main Buddhist teaching the Four Noble Truths worry about suffering that's why we have those cliches about Buddhism is only interested about suffering it's very pessimistic approach but he's like to say that a doctor is a pessimistic guy beyond because he only deals with sick patients the whole point is precisely he's a doctor because he has some idea what to cure them and so in a way at the end of suffering of course is his genuine ultimate happiness and from the Buddhist perspective it corresponds to the final exhaustion of those mental toxin and the final exhaustion of mental confusion so it's like that there's no more shadows so wisdom as now is the predominant state of mind and that's anyway what enlightenment is the union of wisdom and compassion we still extract the two wings of a bird and you need to develop them and cultivate them simultaneously a bird doesn't learn first to fly with one wing and then with the other one so we need those the wisdom so that we don't solidify reality and we need love incandescent compassion of a very good reason which has selfish the pursuit of selfish happiness is born to fail it's a lose-lose situation it makes yourself miserable and you make others miserable there are two quick reasons for that one is that selfishness goes with a lot of rumination which is constantly a center about me me me which is a very unpleasant state of mind and also the second is it at odds with reality because it again sort of brings you as a sort of autonomous entity and while rare it is interdependent but loving kindness and compassion first of all those are the most positive among all positive mental state even neuroscience now corroborates that but also it is in harmony with reality because love and compassion are based on the recognition just as I don't want to suffer no one was deep within it was to suffer and we're all sort of interconnected my happiness can only in a way build true and with that of others so it is attune to reality therefore it will be functional so compassion is united with wisdom which is and this correct understanding of reality so that's why we said that ultimate Buddhahood which is the only true genuine happiness is the perfect union of wisdom and compassion so that's a very short overview of the Buddhist part of course each of those now the use of antidotes the various understanding of those mechanisms could be no investigated much more in-depth but just like a simple overview of the Buddhist view of happiness happiness thank you very much dr. Ricard for those wise and compassionate words the first discussant will be glory keys who was associate professor of sociology at emory university he is the author of numerous articles and the editor of many books and a member of a MacArthur Foundation research network on successful midlife development and co-chair of the first summit of positive psychology he's a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of law and religion here where he's a core member of a multidisciplinary project on the pursuit of happiness five-year project funded by the Templeton Foundation and he participated in the 2007 National Academies of science tech futures initiative on the future of human health span demography evolution medicine and bioengineering his research centers on illuminating the two continuum model of population health and illness showing how the absence of mental illness does not translate into the presence of mental health and revealing that the biological and psychosocial causes of true health are often distinct processes from those now understood as the causes or risks for illness and these works are being applied to a better understanding of resilience prevention of mental illness and informs the growing healthcare approach to predictive health dr. keyes has pursued these issues and is working on governmental with governmental agencies in England in Canada in Northern Ireland in Scotland and with the World Health Organization with the substance abuse and mental health services administration and here in Atlanta with the Centers for Disease Control professor Keyes Thank You Bobby and you all hear me good well I would like to start with some some good news and then because I'm a sociologist and sometimes our job is to sort of provide you with some Inconvenient Truth so to speak that present the challenges that we face as a nation and how we're going to get and promote more flourishing as matures talked about in our population and ultimately with the points I want to make will suggest that I believe there's a deeper approachment between what we're learning about the role of meditation as a skill and how we need in our public health system to begin to learn and apply more of these lessons to actually promote good mental health in not only the US but worldwide so the good news goes something like this the Health and Human Services Administration just told us last month that we received a grant we I'm just part of a team but - through the seventh abuse and mental health services administration for a five-year project and there's a good deal of money behind it and the project will involve creating a national agenda to promote more flourishing or mentally emotional and behavior health in the population but they actually cite the work and I had nothing to do with it but they cite the work on flourishing so I'll have to tell you a little bit about what that means because we you that's been what I've been focusing on trying to look at mental health as the presence of something good not just merely the absence and when we talk about flourishing I'm borrowing deeply from Aristotle's translation of eudaimonia as a particular approached and to a good life where he championed functioning well in life before and instead of pursuing only pleasure and made the argument that if you as individuals and citizens strive to function better in your lives as both private and public beings true happiness sustainable hedonic good feeling well accompany your lives I believe that deeply and I've tried to translate those lessons into ways we measure good mental health that is you need to have a certain amount of the things we call good functioning in life things like purpose and life integration into society a sense that your daily activities matter to the world around you that you're making a contribution a sense of autonomy that you have the confidence to think and express your own ideas a sense of acceptance of yourself but also of other people who aren't like you I mean I could go on and there's a list of eleven symptoms of shine that good functioning some of them have to do with your private life and some of them have to do with your public life but flourishing means more than just functioning well you have to have high levels of those things six of the eleven but you also have to feel good about life happy satisfied or interested in life what does it mean to flourish simply put it means to feel good about life in which you are functioning well now we can measure that and there's then some debates about happiness and during this conference I think you might get the impression that everyone has a different meaning of happiness but when when you boil it down scientifically it fits in those two categories there's a hedonic version of that appeals to human emotion pleasure and it goes back to the ancient Greeks in Epicurus who championed a life of simple pleasures an Aristotle who argued that well we like pleasure as Greeks but that should not be our only and yes we are pleasure-seeking creatures but the ultimate end is to function well to be virtuous to be good people to be good citizens and we should strive to develop our capacities along those lines to function well in this life and you will have lived a good life having trying to obtain those ideals so here we are talking about happiness and how far it goes back into ancient Greek philosophy and how it's been refracted in various religious traditions and I'm happy to say today we've made the public health case that because we can measure this in kids and adults and we have a special issue of the American Journal of Public Health coming out and descendant December where we're showcasing the science along with CDC and Samsa scholars and we have evidence now that over a 10-year period if you promote more flourishing in the adult population and in kids you can prevent mental illness you don't have to accept the argument anymore that treatment is the only option that we can only restore broken souls once they're depressed right we have all the tools and pills and whatnot we can prevent it there is an alternative and we will spend the next five years trying to bring together all the various constituencies in this country who have an interest or say they have a compassion for this to begin to work together on a public health level state by state to begin to try to say here's what we can do to keep more people flourishing kids and adults and here's what we can do to promote it in those who don't have it well I I'm with you this has been a long haul for the same reason that Mateus and when you deal with these things people don't want to believe there's an alternative to the medical approach there is and we now have the science but here's the catch we've spent the last ten years making the case that if you do this you can save on health care costs medical visits prescription drugs missed days of work in addition to preventing mental illness and now they want us to do this tell me Auri how do we promote it how do we promote it you've made the case we want to be there how do we promote it and that's where I think the beauty and wisdom of Buddhism and the various religious traditions we have been working on this I think for centuries need to get more involved with a scholars beyond just psychologists we so skellige they're interested in applying this to whole societies and we need it we need it more than ever you want to know when the onset of most common mental disorders are between the ages of 15 and 24 anxiety mood disorders or substance abuse by the time our kids have had a chance to even start this life they're looking out and saying is this really worth it and we can show the reason that happens is that from middle school to high school we lose to 10% of flourishing right then and there what are we going to do to protect all that's good about our lives medicine doesn't have the answer and don't look to them we're starting to engage in those conversations so here is where I thought this notion of inner discipline I want to tie this back together I was reading going back over the art of happiness because Matua talked about in his title of his talk cultivating inner discipline I think we need that more than ever as one of the approaches I think to test on a public health level how are you going to keep more people flourishing what not but here's what in the art of happiness Howard Cutler concludes with His Holiness the Dalai Lama has repeatedly emphasized that inner discipline is the basis of a spiritual life and it's the fundamental method of achieving happiness and for reasons you're right you've heard inner discipline involves combating negative states of mine anger hatred greed and cultivating positive states kindness compassion and tolerance what they're talking about the founders of this country were talking about and what we're measuring and flourishing goes back to that very notion and what Aristotle was saying and what the founding fathers of this country wanted us Jefferson said this happiness is the aim of life but virtue is the foundation of happiness what is he saying well we can seek pleasure and all Americans have the right now because you have freedoms and you can accumulate property and wealth but only through the restraint of reason and virtue can we obtain it in a way that reconciles two meanings of happiness the first is individual interest which goes back to pleasure that's about feeling good we're really good at that the lizard brain the limbic system is well wired to push you in that direction right but there's another meaning of happiness that goes back and it's about the greater good now you can misconstrue that sometimes but the greater good means it's our job and responsibility that we have the rights to pursue our individual pleasures that we should also develop restraints and reasons that apply to functioning well as a citizen and as an individual doing good things living a life with purpose integrating into society contributing having the confidence express ideas and opinions that really matter that double a meeting of happiness is very important and that's what flourishing is and I think that's why we need inner discipline and I also think that there's a deeper approach because I love Aristotle and Aristotle is my favorite theorist in fact I don't quote many sociologists they never had any interest in this I don't know why but as I've tried to study this and and show that mental health is more than the absence that it consists of feeling good and functioning well and made the case that we need to go there it's become obviously clear that the challenge is how are we going to learn to balance those two meanings greater good individual interests so the bad news is this well it's not you can think of bad news as an opportunity isn't a challenge we have been doing a good job in this country pursuing individual pleasures and Adam Smith said that this was the illusion that would drive this economy and it has GDP has been going up and up and although it's stalled in the last year or two it continues to go up but two or three weeks ago the Census Bureau announced that for the first time in the history of this country levels of income inequality are at a record high never before in the history of this country has so much wealth and been concentrated in so few hands and the distance between the richest and the poorest the greatest and the poorest those 90 percent roughly speaking who own less than half of the national wealth that 10% that has over half of it there's a lot of poor people who believe that the only way they're going to find their happiness is through the material pursuit and we live now in a time where there is greater different differences in distance and suspicion and the discourse of our civil lives and our political lives had gotten so coarse that we need more than ever to cultivate this inner discipline but we need to apply it and expect it of our institutions which are just collections of people thinking through policy and practice I would like to see more compassion cultivated in the way Congress goes about its deliberations in the same way Buddhists expect each of us as individuals to do compassion and we will find our way so thank you thanks very much Cory and our next commentator is Professor Michael Perry who is woodruff professor of law at the Emory Law School he was did his undergraduate work in at Georgetown and majored in philosophy and minored in religion before studying law at Columbia and then serving as law clerk first to US District Judge Jack Weinstein and a year later US Circuit Judge Shirley Hufstedler and began his academic career at Ohio State University where he taught for many years before moving to Northwestern University and then to become a distinguished chair of law at Wake Forest University before coming to Emory in 2003 he is the author of 12 books and over 75 articles I won't read you the titles of his books because it wouldn't have any time for him to speak but he is presently writing two books one on the morality and the law of international human rights the other on the constitutional morality of the United States professor Perry specializes in three areas the United States constitutional law in theory with an emphasis on constitutional rights in the courts proper role law morality and religion with an emphasis on the proper role of religiously based morality in the law and politics in a liberal democracy and human rights theory with an emphasis on the morality and law of international human rights professor Perry thanks very much team pol I am honoured and delighted to be with all of you this afternoon both all of you up here and all of you out there it's been a long day this is the last scheduled presentation I'll be brief try to be brief and indeed John Witte has instructed me and the other commentators to be brief and only if I were perversely committed to the pursuit of unhappiness what I declined to do John's bidding my brief comment takes the form of a few thoughts about happiness living well and human rights we are told in the programme for this event today's event without the Dalai Lama quote has widely stated that he believes the very purpose of life is to be happy as my friend and colleague Philip Reynolds explained this morning however and as we have observed all during the day's proceedings in the past people have meant and today people mean not one thing buy happiness but many different things so many different things that we have good reason to be skeptical about whether using this term is productive in our various discourses so if we are going to talk as the Dalai Lama did about the purpose of life I feel more comfortable saying that the purpose of life is to live well if there is an overarching object worthy of our pursuit it is a life well-lived but we many us disagree with one another about what living well consists in a man I consider my mentor though I never met him is Thomas Merton the Roman Catholic monk who 42 years ago this fall in 1968 shortly before he died in an accident met and conversed with the Dalai Lama Merton said there is no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can said Merton well then do Buddhism and Christianity agree about what living well consists in was that mertens point according to the Christian worldview the universe is speaking analogically an ongoing act of love the actor God God is love and we human beings are continuing to speak analogically children of God love and sister brother to one another we live well we achieve happiness in the sense of living well to the extent we succeed in becoming persons who discern existential II if not also intellectually that is with our hearts if not also with our minds who discern one another as sisters brothers and live our lives accordingly that is who live lie in which our relationship to one another is one of selfless love which Christians call agape I understand that the Sanskrit term for wisdom that Buddhists have used is Praja and the Sanskrit term for compassion that Buddhists use have used is Karuna we may say I think that the discernment of the other as sister brother is Praja wisdom and that the living accordingly is Karuna compassion we can see how the world view I have just sketched barely not merely coheres with but yields what I have called the morality of human rights according to which in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights all members of the human family have inherent dignity and we should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood in the words of the Universal Declaration as the acclaimed philosopher Charles Taylor has explained the and I'm quoting Taylor the affirmation of universal human rights that characterizes modern liberal political culture represents an authentic development of the gospel these thoughts lead me to two questions which I want to leave you with the Christian worldview you know or have noticed is a worldview that affirms the existence of a transcendent reality as distinct from the reality that the object of natural scientific inquiry one may wonder why in the name of God so to speak we should affirm the existence of a transcendent reality given what the great 20th century Catholic theologian Karl Rahner called the endless desert of God silence we may wonder given the endless desert of God silence why we should affirm with Julian of Norwich that all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well nonetheless the Christian worldview is a worldview that exists the existence of a transcendent reality and now the two questions first is the worldview I have sketched here in particular the account of living well I have sketched plausible for one who does not affirm the existence of a transcendent reality in this regard I commend to you an essay by franz de Waal that appears in the online edition of today's New York Times an essay that's highly relevant to that question the wall as many of you know is Candler professor of psychology here at emory and director of the living link center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center up the road so that's the first question is the worldview I have sketched here in particular the account of living well I have sketched plausible for one who does not affirm the existence of a transcendent reality the second question the final question does Buddhism like Christianity affirm does Buddhism at least implicitly affirm the existence of a transcendent reality or is Buddhism's worldview like Diwali a purely natural scientific worldview relatedly is Buddhism more than a psychology joined with a technique or set of techniques thank you do we have time for a question interact would you care to address each other perhaps you'll yes I think you really my question I think they live well as you know when you speak of happiness that in this while being without an iPhone and if it was not overused it refers to you our deepest aspect of your being that means the every moment of your experience being well in your being deeper deep within and so somehow it is bit closer from that concept of living wealth and happiness which is a very very vague word so yes you know the dilemma orphans have been confronted with these kind of questions and he you know his main purpose is what can we contribute to society as buddhist society at large what are the way he spoke again today of secular ethics and when you say secular ethics people thing is something diminished is something dull is something deprived of all these substance but perhaps because this world instead we should use ethics of spiritual values which are fundamental and universal that ristic love is universal in all great spiritual tradition there's no argument about that and if we were all together to cultivate that and unite around that instead of the divisions and then instead of being flags of division that could be flag of reunion the great tradition so in that sense he's always shy to state the different levels of the body's fuel he speaks of Buddhist science which is the analysis of reality that everyone can accept the mechanism of happiness and suffering the relation with hatred and compassion this is basically so Universal it's like a Japanese physicist to find a new type of particle the particle doesn't become Japanese it exists though it doesn't exist so those kind of truth that hatred and anger and jealousy will destroy your happiness and that of others doesn't have although it has been reflected upon an experience for 2,500 years in the Buddhist world the science of mind and kind of specialty that you could say if it is true it's true for all if it's not if it's it's fake also for the bodies themselves so in that sense he speaks of Buddhist science because it's a honest rigorous appreciation of reality then he speaks of Buddhist philosophy of police religion and Buddhist practice so usually when we push him a little bit too much it's as well does Buddhist business none of your business but what he means by that it's of course there's a extreme richness and Buddhism of considering various levels of reality we speak of relative truth and absolute truth we speaks of all kinds of very complex levels that leads to Buddhahood and transcendence in a way that is certainly not much to do with what we call the deluded ordinary perception of reality and we perceive reality as solid we perceive things as being intrinsically pleasant and unpleasant has been more less permanent that in this watch was mine yesterday still me too in mind today and all kinds of things like that that is somehow not attune with reality and so it is quite true that the even the absolute truth is beyond concept it is said so there is a lot of very very deep concept that is also something that can be internalized to direct experience and this is part of the spiritual part to eventually being able to pray and not to just mental construct but to direct experience the and sort of deluded nature of mind that we call the Buddha nature that is in every sentient being that is like a piece of gold that just needs to be polished even it has been buried in in the mud for a long time and that's totally devoid of all those mental toxin that is not something that can be purely uh printed by examples by words by concept but still that can be a full fully experience as a direct realization so all these we could refer to transcendence there's obviously of course in the in the Buddhist world view perspective about the ultimate nature of consciousness that certainly is not the prevailing view with science as a continuum in this as a primary phenomena just as matter as a primary phenomena that when you come to super strings or elementary particles while the question of life needs well there is something rather than nothing unless you bring a creator basically you just acknowledge that the phenomenal world is there so Buddhism make the same reasoning about nature of consciousness that if you are honestly pursuing introspection you come to pure awareness you don't come to neurons or you brain that we cannot even feel so to be honest pure experience is a primary phenomena then Buddhism goes on to say this must be a continuum and just as in matter nothing can come X nil or disappear into pure or nothingness likewise the stream of consciousness cannot come from nowhere and disappear into nothing so this is of course not Buddhist science in the sense that it is not common reality that anyone with you can immediately observe but there is it is still part of the spiritual part and it's still part of the experience that is possible so then we come to rely on some what we call valid testimony in the sense that there may be things that are not out of reach but that you cannot directly immediately experience by yourself because of the lack of training the lack of wisdom the lack of insight and see something that needs to be cultivated even further but then how is the valid testimony is that you know if someone who has gone to that journey and and say for instance in physics I cannot prove or disprove the existence of this new particle but if fifteen experienced physicists who have check each other's work agree that they it must be the case then we say okay if those all those guys have verify each other's findings and this sort of them is probably the truth and we accept that and we put that in schoolbooks so likewise if a number of great contemplatives or someone like the Buddha and his followers have experienced a certain level of what we call absolute truth and in all other aspects of life there were flawless sort of conduct and speech and everything then the sort of likely likelihood is that if they if their irreproachable on all other aspects why should they conspire to all lie on one particular point and so then you may say well it's not something that I have to believe out of blind faith but it's an indication that the something that I could discover and that's also why the Buddha said never believe what I said simply out of respect for me but we discovered by yourself nevertheless those indications are like a precious map to a land well you have not been yet but the map is now the way to go so in that sense even it's not directly accessible right now the possibility is always there so that's in a way the other aspect beyond Buddhist science which has to do with Buddhist inner science and then with Buddhist practice and as I solemn the Rama says that's our business Buddhist business thank you very much the preceding program is copyrighted by Emory University

Channel: EmorySchoolofLaw

Views: 20,876

Keywords: Buddhism, happiness, cslr, law and religion

Id: ko0az8ZorN0

Length: 75min 51sec (4551 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 01 2010