Western Science and Buddhist Perspectives

[Applause] hello good morning good morning where's your daughter daughter so his name I easily remember there was wolf singer so today I consider beside wolf I'm forcing okay okay thank you thank you Mongolian gray day they read somewhere no Samba no thang yes I already mentioned his late father oh not only my friend but I consider my teacher they were quantum physics then usually I telling I'm student of your late father about quantum physics but actually hopeless student because when I listen your father's or explanation they were quarter fishes and I am listening Oh seems I understand something after this session nothing left here so hopeless please oh yeah good morning everybody translation is available so if everyone everyone meets needs it you get it outside I was currently asked by the Tibet house to introduce you to this program today and guide you through the day and the symposium which is an interdisciplinary meeting and exchange of thoughts of scientists but also of practitioners in various fields the purpose of coming together however reaches far beyond information as active human beings we act we manage and achieve great things yet as a species among others on this planet we are also quite unfair greedy and sometimes extremely violent in short most of the time we do not behave wisely could we change that at least a little bit today we hope to offer a perspective which is not just based on goodwill and positive thinking but also on scientific research and training the team at house Germany in Frankfurt is one of only three official Tibet houses of this kind worldwide apart from New York and the Tibet house Cultural Center and new daily the Tibet house in Frankfurt is under the direct patronage and spiritual guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and it's designed to promote the dialogue between science and wisdom between Tibetan Buddhism and the very secular world which we live it is designed to improve what His Holiness called secular ethics and meditation so today's symposium would have three parts this morning we focus on theoretical framework that is on what we know about secular ethics and secular meditation and the effects it has on everyday life after the lunch break part two we will go deeper into practical projects and see what we discussed some of the theoretical insights applied in practice the afternoon thus is a bridge between science and life after a break the third part of this symposium you will see a documentary film which summarizes what we have discussed and after the film the participants of all the meetings in the morning and the afternoon sessions will be here and you can ask questions we do that in a written form because it's easier I will explain that later on and then indifference to the program you have there is an additional item on the agenda His Holiness asked to give a brief introduction to this point which he already mentioned thirty years ago an event like this would not have been possible serious researchers meeting with contemplative practitioners and think about the improvement of lives there were two important steps which enabled that development one was the introduction of mindfulness based stress reduction as a method in the late 70s and then there was also another global step the decision and the will of His Holiness to open his cultural religious and spiritual heritage to scientific discourse he wanted it to be tested and analyzed without him and all the scientists he asked along the way to cooperate meditation research based on scientific methods would not have been possible his holiness asked me to remind you all today that his friend the German physicist philosopher and later promoter of these studies calculating if I had von weizsäcker died 10 years ago in April 2007 von weizsäcker worked with vana Heisenberg made important theoretical discoveries greatly influenced the theory of planetary formation in the solar system after the Second World War CalFire fond vensica became a founding director of the department of theoretical physics at the Max Planck Institute for physics and cutting even though there is still a debate sometimes on his involvement in plans of the Nazi regime to build a nuclear bomb it's clear that in his later effort career he focused on philosophical topics and especially on ethical issues he became professor of philosophy at the University of Hamburg with a special interest in global ethics with the Indian philosopher panda Krishna he established a research foundation for Western science and Eastern wisdom and he was a member of the gatina 18 which was a group of prominent German physicists who severely protested against the idea that the German army the Bundeswehr should be equipped with tactical nuclear weapons it was the will of His Holiness today to first be shortly five minutes about his friends and after that what is one white second the son of car English who was invited by his holiness will also talk to you what is phone whites occur just briefly the physicist professor of biology was direct at the United Nations Center for Science and Technology in New York and his co-president of the Club of Rome and now please welcome His Holiness again ah indeed I feel great honor sitting with late more visible Sun the Sun also now get quite world so added by good friend or singer so sitting together I really feel Laura and deeply feeling some kind of reunion longtime friend but he knew but because of his father I have great admiration and then now the the question is today's world lot of progress in a material field and economy and some other field but I think today's world I think some kind of mental crisis too much fear too much anger because of mental level is it too much so I'm just like that so the physical reaction was telling buoy and necklace thousands of people but could it children women time so that big question whether we can do something or not that I think I believe according many my friend yes basic human nature as I mentioned yesterday basic human nature is more compassionate no scientist is especially brain site specialist you see they begin to feel the mental consciousness something important true in order to achieve peace of mind through that way better health so I develop genuine interest about modern science and then the condom physics or something very wonderful one time one Indian nuclear physicist he told me in the West Contra physics is something new new idea new concept but in India 2,000 years ago already to develop that concept so I have some interest too because of comparisons a conversation like that so then late David Bohm and one vesica I consider my tutor about controversies so and then besides that particular subject see later your father they say we have several products sort of dogs and very useful so therefore when we have this kind of meeting I felt some more visitors children or something if participate and because of the memory oh I feel I feel then great Lorna so know which is less here and you are here so as I mentioned earlier there are you also don't become old so we everybody yeah by getting older and older that's the sign of moving of if I'm not move then no further development for the progress I think very basis all change is time movement so according that reality we have the opportunity to explore our intelligence maximum way with wrong was a farsighted and holistic so this kind of meeting I feel important thank you [Applause] your holiness dignitaries friends it's a great honor of me to address you with just a few words I know that my father would have been extremely happy seeing you conversing with good scientists around the world in particular here in Germany in family he was a wonderful father he accepted all our wins which was fantastic but in addition he also brought close to us that that is a common interest between deep religion and the sciences not only in dialogue that's a good thing but in addition to jointly search for the truth he knew that peace among nations among people is virtually impossible without good religion he knew that prosperity and progress was not conceivable without good science science that is not bribed not well based on lies you know today everybody is talking about fake news and all that which is a bad sign we need the correctness the proofs the scientific proofs but also we need the deep knowledge coming perhaps in meditation in the tradition 2,000 years old that does exist and is part of human culture and wisdom in the Club of Rome we are currently working on as we perceive it the need for a new enlightenment the old enlightenment was great with Immanuel Kant's idea of eternal peace with the idea that not the king but the people are the sovereign and many other great innovations but it has been transmogrified into utilitarianism which is not good enough a new enlightenment has to acknowledge God's balance balance between short-termism if I want to drink I want to drink now and not in 30 years from now and long term meaning the future of humankind of nature we have to acknowledge the balance between the state and the market the state gives the law the market has to obey obey but today markets are global and the state is national so markets are dominating the state which is not good we have to have a balance between religion and the public if we have a state that is dominated by religion like the Islamic state or so it can be a disaster but if we have a state without the wisdom of religion it can also be a disaster so balance which is virtue a great achievement in Buddhism and other mostly Asian religions is going to be the essential part of a new kind of enlightenment we are extremely humbled by your presence we are extremely proud of your way of thinking of your acknowledging great minds like vana Heisenberg David Bohm my father the calculator I found Biesecker but now the turn is over to you again I feel extremely grateful your holiness for inviting me [Applause] well for more than 2,500 years it is claimed that meditation and mindfulness mindfulness do have a lot of positive effects on body and mind but only in recent times science was actually able to really study and measure these effects today we have a lot of empirical data about the changes taking place in our body in our immune system the stress and hormone system and of course the change in the brain but there's also something else and something more well Xena is one of the leading neuro scientists worldwide his scientific work as a director of the Max Planck Institute for brain research in Frankfurt then he was founding director of the ants Ponemon Institute for Neuroscience and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies in his research he focused on the neural substance of higher cognitive functions such as thinking for example what is it that enables us to have a coherent perception and perform coherent actions beside these studies in foundational research of the brain he also started to become interested in meditation research with his friend the Tibetan monk mature Rika who's also scientists they recently wrote the book beyond the self conversations between Buddhism and neuroscience please welcome Valle singer but you have to catch it I have you have the laser pointer for the presentation I have no slides okay no science today I thought you did you holiness madam and damn it is really a great honor and pleasure to have you here again and to share my introductory remarks with you and to hear your comments afterwards and you are critical yeah your criticism which I know it can sometimes be quite harsh so our discussions our discussions today they will be centered on issues of Education and secular ethics and ethics that is not anchored in transcendental belief systems and we are very much looking forward your opinions on the issues that will be presented throughout this morning now my personal opinion is that one of the central problems if not the central problem of our civilizations is our evolutionary heritage we are as we have learned over the years the product of an evolutionary process that optimized us to survive to reproduce and to protect our offspring this was the main goal and this competitive selection has endowed us with large and diverse repertoire of behavioral dispositions drives and cognitive abilities we developed a host of pro-social abilities such as love affection trust empathy fairness and altruism towards our mating partners our offspring and the cooperating members of our families and tribes but he also developed strong drives to explore the world and to use our intelligence and to predict in order to predict dangerous events and to improve our living conditions in addition we develop drives that we came to consider as harmful nowadays although they were equally important to assure a survival in particular when we have to compete for sparse resources or get the grasp by competitors in all these cases we tend to become exceedingly we tend to become exceedingly agree stick selfish greedy unfair and aggressive and we switch from caring kindness to counter-attack hatred and revenge and we then use our intelligence to harm competitors and rivals however thanks to our intelligence and creativity we also excel over animals in both the positive and the negative manifestations of these inborn behavioral traits we can be altruistic to the limits of self-sacrifice which no animal does but we can also be extremely cruel we do of course observe considerable into individual variations in these traits and probably also some gender related differences we are not sure yet but we all possess this broad repertoire of deeply rooted traits we all can be good and bad at the same time now evolution has also endowed us with exceptional cognitive abilities that allowed us in contrast to animals to initiate what we call cultural evolution we developed a sophisticated communication system our language that enables us to engage in reflexive dialogues of the form I know that you know what I know I know that you know how I feel in such dialogues allowed us to learn about the mental states of the respective other and to gradually become aware of the fact that the world consists also often immaterial dimension that can be experienced named and shared and not only of material objects so we added an immaterial a mental spiritual dimension to our existence examples of these novel realities are our religious belief systems our ideologies our convictions our moral norms our ethical judgments but also the concepts of freedom and equality and our narratives of history our unique ability to share observations thoughts and concepts allowed us to form very complex and highly cohesive societal structures but at the same time it also enabled us to develop mental constructs of racial religious and national identities and these constructs added a very consequential dimension to our distinctness of friends and enemies so on the one hand these cultural achievements have substantially amplified our pro-social behavior we have implemented rules of conduct and codified them as Commandments in religious belief systems and we assured obedience through these rules by promising reward and Punishment not only during lifetime but beyond our physical existence pro-social behavior was also encouraged by social recognition that attributes high moral value to pro-social behavior and by secular normative systems that again rely on reward and Punishment to reinforce compliance on the other hand cultural constructs have also been used to dramatically amplify behavioral dispositions that we came to consider as negative the history of mankind is rich in examples demonstrating that the most cruel and collectively committed aggressions homicide genocide deprivation of freedom denial of human dignity you have actually been committed and justified in the name of cultural constructs such as religions belief systems ideologies concepts of national and ethnic identity and many more doctrines propagated by belief systems propaganda social recognition in biased education have always played crucial roles in motivating and justifying aggression wars homicides and suppression thus and I found this an interesting issue cultural techniques per se are ambivalent they can be applied to enhance the expression of pro-social behavior but they can also be abused to dramatically amplify the expression of our dioxide because many of the most cruel regimes in our history were actually installed and sustained by highly cultivated and educated people our own German history I think is a blatant example for this hence neither religious education nor culture seem to be able to protect us from engaging in extremely negative actions the reason is that mental constructs can be instrumentalized and abused to justify aggression and cruelty so now this raises the question which options we actually are left with and the contributions of our dialogue today will probably address some of these ideas I personally believe there is no singular nor any simple solution to the problem rather we will have to consider a whole bunch of measures none of which is actually new as mentioned the beginning one of the major factors for the amplification of our negative behavioral dispositions is the context in which we evolve scarcity of resources inequality injustice humiliation and lacking of self-esteem nurture greediness and aggression in negative behavior hatred thus we obviously need to continue to strive for political social and economical systems that reduce these sectors we have also seen that belief systems cultural constructs that are not based on empirically validated facts are particularly well suited to be abused as justifications of aggression here in my opinion the by far most effective antidote whenever my second is already addressed it it's the critical and rational analysis of our conditions and you have repeated this many many times and our cultures have actually invented very efficient tools to attain this goal our Occidental cultures have developed a technique of scientific reasoning and empiricism to obtain valid information about the world around us and once we begin to make ourselves the object of scientific investigation also of our own condition now Eastern cultures I do represent probably in the most optimal way they concentrated on contemplative practices that use analytical introspection to explore and analyze our inner reality you your holiness address these practices if I remember correctly as the science of the mind both strategies effectively protect one against becoming seduced by false beliefs thus relying on critical reasoning inside and empirically validated facts and they're emphasized empirically rather than unproved beliefs is I think by far the best strategy to avoid maladaptive behavior and as it turns out there is a surprisingly good convergence between the commandments condensed in the wisdom of world religions and the rules of conduct derived from rational insight that are codified in the secular ethics of advanced civilizations they resemble each other quite substantially but the match is not perfect it is also evident that some convictions nurtured by religious systems and public opinion are in harsh contrast with empirical validated facts so the scientific approach propagated by humanistic enlightenment has undoubtedly proven beneficial for coping with the challenges of life but it comes with a cost it reduced our confidence in transcendental forces that we believe take care of us furthermore it forced upon us with the insight and I think it's a tragic insight that we are fully responsible for our destiny and at the same time because we discovered the complexity of the world and our restricted cognitive abilities we became aware that we cannot predict the consequences of our actions and that we cannot predict our future now this is an humbling insight and this is a powerful source of insecurity and obviously then a strong motivation to again search for consolation in belief systems and nowadays you mentioned it we have a clearly visible and dangerous trend in our postmodern epoch to search consolation again in the world of unproven facts and beliefs and pure religion or care so again the question is holiness which are the options that we are left with how can we cope with the challenges imposed on us by the program of enlightened humanism how can we acquire the confidence required for this for assuming the self-imposed responsibilities because it's ourselves who put these responsibilities on ourselves and how can we endure the fallacies of life the difficulties without consolation by projected beliefs without relying on promises that will be fulfilled only beyond our earthly existence I believe that these premises call for a coordinated multi-level approach surely we need to invest all our intelligence and creativity to design political social and economical systems whose IQ tech chure favor stability through self-organization and assures a maximum of equality justice and security but this is a connective action that we have to take then we all need to realize that it is us who are responsible for the future of our life and our planet and not somebody else now this insight I think that brings us to the today's topic requires a basic understanding of the laws of nature the history of our universe our evolutionary origins and heritage our cognitive and psychological conditions and restrictions the knowledge about the diversity of cultural traditions and an understanding of the laws that govern the dynamics of complex systems now this is is the very elite Aryan educational program but I think on the long run we will only be able to cope with our problems if this awareness becomes a global awareness otherwise it won't work so massive investment I think is also required to render humans competent in mastering cultural practices techniques that allow for differentiated communication it both the rational but also the emotional level this implies to master at least one differentiated language and to acquire basic competences in the non rational communication techniques that are better suited to convey emotional contents such as the products of art music corporal expression and any source of artistic competence however all these techniques and the knowledge about the world will only be fully exploitable if have the chance to become aware of ourselves if we learn to master techniques that allow us a profound self exploration and this domain I think is the one that contemplative practices and training of mindfulness can exploit for us the science of the mind as you call it it's a necessary and complimentary basis of all the stuff that I have been talking about before and I will soon come to an end care with me for another two minutes or so because there might be another option which is perhaps the most efficient one and that might be to directly influence or shape the character of human persons by education in order to enhance pro-social behavior obviously it would be very beneficial if our inherited drives to try for aggression for greediness and so forth could really be changed rather than trust be controlled by reward and Punishment what we mostly do this would allow us to eradicate perhaps attitudes that male on no longer be adapted to the actual conditions of our societies now modifying a person's character is obviously much much harder and more ambitious than teaching instrumental abilities because it requires interference with the genetically determined architecture of our brains now I think we by and large ignore whether these inborn dispositions can it all be modified this is unclear and if so to which extent but if there is a chance to modify these inborn traits it is through education it is through interventions the target the developing process of the brain itself rather than a post hoc correction and the reason is that these early interventions can interfere with the development of the brain its architecture its wiring and thereby perhaps directly modify the program according to which brains organized their perceptions in actions now a brief remark on the development of the human brain the human brain which was very very slowly and reaches its adults structure only around the age of 20 years or 25 and during this protracted developmental period very large number of neuronal connections are formed but also destroyed at the same time and this process of making and breaking is controlled and neuronal activity and this year on electricity in turn is controlled by environment by experience by education it serves to adapt the baby to the conditions into which it is born so genetic factors and these environmental factors have the same effect on the brain they determine the architecture the wiring and if we were able to modify these properties we would actually be able to change the programming of the brain very early to the same extent this is possible with genes unfortunately we have no safe knowledge about the abilities the options of this procedure we don't know how much education can influence these behavioral traits we don't know at which time of development we have to interfere in order to change particular properties all this is unknown and therefore much more research is needed before we can reach safe conclusions on educational strategies that enhance the likelihood of enhancing pro-social behavior all we know is that both the genes and early experience determined the connectivity of the brain and thereby its cognitive and executive functions now last chapter last minute we have throughout the last millennia of cultural evolution experimented with educational strategies and the goals were probably always the same to transmit knowledge to teach survival techniques to encourage pro-social behavior and to repress harmful drives it would be interesting to know and maybe today we will find out something about it whether we have already exhausted the repertoire of techniques to influence the character of people and of our children or whether there are new strategies to be discovered another pressing question is at which developmental stage particular functions develop and can be met manipulated from modified is possible at all now these are empirical questions that can only be answered by rigorous scientific investigation now unfortunately very unfortunately we have only very few well controlled investigations of these questions the field of Education therefore is rich of dogmas unproven convictions and therefore it's very susceptible to abuse and you have many historical examples for this in the service of belief systems in ideologies thus pedagogical concepts must be met with the same skepticism they be subject to the same scrutiny as any other of our interventions and because mistaking manipulations of brain development can cause irreversible damage with all likelihood we have to proceed with particular caution when experimenting with educational programs and as always when we lack empirical evidence the best strategy if we have to act is to make only small and incremental changes and to very carefully examine the consequences with scientific rigor and I hope that we will see today in which direction this field is moving and I'm very curious to hear what the experts have to say about the options of education that they think could make us better people thank you very much as omens I just need the pointer so I was asked to talk about the historical and theoretical backgrounds of secular ethics from this perspective of Western and Eastern civilizations now you can guess that's a research project for a lifetime but we do it in 15 minutes how do we do it first I talk about east and west then about what is secular what does ethics mean in this context and what in the end is secular ethics east and west why east and west we live in a globalized age we talk about east and west today at the symposium and we do not exclude by that North and South rather we are talking about certain types of civilizations and there's a purpose behind it as always one right sec i pointed out we need a balance between east and west and as well zynga pointed out isn't it strange that we have great science great technologies for centuries and almost no empirical evidence of how we are able to put ethical principles to work we don't know who we are so the beginning with east and west there is something wrong with this distinction usually it's said that philosophy and with it ethics go back to ancient Greece and the so called pre-socratics now pre-socratic philosophy is the philosophy before Socrates who lived around 470 before the common area we think that Western thought and civilization started there in Greece a civilization which today includes so many different continents as Europe the United States but also in a way Latin America and Australia so that's all Western we think it all began in the 6th century before Christ in Greece except that was Egypt before the Babylonian Empire Persia India and China a closer look reveals that even in Greece it all started at the borders the pre-socratic philosophers mainly came from the eastern and western fringes of the Greek world and if you dig even deeper you find that the famous philosopher Aristotle called these pre-socratic guys the physiology on one hand which translates into the physical or natural philosophers and that was a term coined in opposition to the theology that is the god thinkers with their means and methods the physiology we would say the scientists today were searching for natural explanations of the phenomena the teal law boy the theologians based their knowledge of the world and ourselves about the supernet on the supernatural on gods on magic so two things are important to remember from the very beginning first there is from early on prequel to the later concept of secularism and secular ethics that of natural explanation versus reference to gods and the second point is also important there is no strict separation of East and West at the beginning these are just some Greek cities at ancient times when you look at this list of names you don't Geron he we have to read them all it's interesting that you see for example naval cadets a' and the founder of Hindu religion Gena Mahavira lived at the same I'm Lord Buddha and Confucius at the same time a little bit later photographers Pamina desi no some famous Greeks and then Socrates Plato Aristotle historians call this the axial age a concept introduced by the German philosopher Karl aspis and he meant that almost simultaneously you had a strikingly parallel new development in Persia India China and the greek-roman world why well if you look at this map there's one reason why this is the kingdom of Alexander the Great born in 356 before the common area he died in 323 in Babylonia as a youth he was tutored by philosopher Aristotle until the age of 16 and basically after that he was on war continuously and that's his that's his realm you can see that it's almost from Italy to into India that's one Kingdom another point you probably know that at the times of formation of Buddhism there was no human or anthropocentric representation of the Buddha but you find it after Alexander the Great images and statues of Buddha as a person emerged in the first century before our time in northern India in gandara which is basically the northwest frontier of Pakistan you see the Greek and Persian influences immediately you find Greek features such as wavy hair drapery shoes and sandals leaf decorations yes and Nirvana symbols and that points to another direction in the writings of the famous and probably most important early Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna who lived around 200 after Christ after the common area and found of the midea mica school of Mahayana Buddhism he discussed arguments of Aristotle for example in his text fundamental versions of the middle way so we are all interdependent from very early on that's not a pacemaker the Silk Road transmission it was the analog version of today's internet parcels with goods traveled from Asia to Europe not with Amazon but on horsebacks and on donkeys I mentioned the pre-socratics it was at this precise time that a very early secular development took place called in literature the first or Greek enlightenment a criticism of the earlier theologies the myth and the stories of gods and gods we find in houma and his yacht just an example this is a quote phone signal Fanus who lived around 550 70 sorry before the common area born in a small town in Turkey he did not believe in gods but said that if there is any then it should be one he should be greatest among gods and humans but he promoted a very modern relativistic idea which became really famous more than 2,000 years later with philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach and his critique of Christianity in the Age of Enlightenment say no finesse road if cattle and horses and lions had hands or could paint with the hands and create works such as men do horses like horses and cattle like cattle they also would depict the God shapes and make their bodies of such a sort as the form they themselves are in other words gods are like us they are just projections of ourselves into something greater so the roots of the Age of Enlightenment go back 2500 years at least and the roots are mixed their east and west there's mathematics coming from India and that's the start of secularization there was a break obviously in the middle Jannetty as the state religion overtook the governmental structures and bureaucracy of the Roman Empire and bent part of the Greek philosophers and it took years centuries for the Greek philosophers to be rediscovered now what is secularization a few points first point is secularization defines a process of separation it is a separation between government and state institutions on the one hand and religious institutions persons and practices on the other that started also in the Reformation time schools and universities were not exclusively religious intuitions anymore this is st. Paul's Church on Oxford's Walton Street today is a bar and cafe so this is the main difference between the age of enlightenment Alf clear home in the 18th and 19th century and the early Greek enlightenment in the Greek cities the separation of state and religion was not sharp after the age of reason there's a sharp distinctions and it's fixated in constitutional laws you still have the right to be completely free of any religious rules and teachings and the state in turn declares by law that it is neutral in these matters second aspect of secularization is less political as well singer pointed out this scientific education was only for a few intellectuals at the beginning now this is the rise of science mean that religion is necessarily dead religion did in fact withdraw that's true but it's still there today and it still has its niches and influence as we all know so the historical process of secularization is not just the history of science it uncommon Compass's all cultural forces from science to art culture value systems furniture fashion in fact and modernity can exist at the same time quite well the only difference is that in democratic secular societies it's not accepted the rate that religion is more important than human rights or laws charts Taylor one of the leading experts that's the third point points out that there's another important aspect of secularization it's not just science Taylor calls what happens the spiritual supernova effect plurality exploded so he's so to speak we now want to have many many more options life in fullness starting with Renaissance movement and followed by humanism no authority authority except men's was accepted thinking ethics the conduct of life knowledge in all fields men replaced God and the goal was not to go beyond Roman human prosperity and flourishing the consequence was an explosion of new ideas God had to be driven out of the center of the universe but soon we understood with Darwinism Freud the edge of my seat machines that there is no center that we in fact are not even in the center ourselves one of the great achievements of secularism and science is to see ourselves clearly and critically from outside of ourselves this photo we see ourselves in the Milky Way even though we are part of the Milky Way as Thomas Nagel puts it we have a view from nowhere but do we really understand what it means to be human in neuroscience we invent machines which enable us to study consciousness that is what happens in our first-person perspective in the individual and we study it from the third-person perspective that of a scientist performing tests we use and apply very abstract methods in order to understand the mind but do we really understand what is inside is it not true that to a certain extent we became blind to everything which cannot be explained by this cold detached third-person perspective as a scientist 15 years ago you did better not say that you talked to His Holiness the Dalai Lama or that you practice meditation it was very bad for your career today most scientists firmly believed that in order to understand and make better ethical decisions we have to understand the brain and now there's a rising consciousness that we have to understand the first-person perspective as well and the second one which is the you the interaction of humans there's still another aspect of secularization while singham mentioned it science is 100% man-made so with the success of technologies and instruments it became more and more difficult to resist the temptation that human beings themselves are just instruments and means to an end so if you believe in the social powers of what's up in Facebook today you are means for a company running it you are a digital worker who makes money for companies by using their products without getting paid but that's only the economic surface that the idea of men as instruments and means is far more dangerous think of the piles of teeth or glasses glasses at the Auschwitz concentration camps they show that humans can be degraded to suppliers of goods for other humans the dental gold of killed Jews nicely filled the safes of banks modern technology also invented bombs and mass destruction what you see here is one of the latest instruments autonomous military robot from Boston dynamic you can watch how it works on YouTube it's scary being secular therefore is no absolute value in itself a science is secularity necessarily good the dark side of secularization led to a vast killing of humans of nature of animals but there is a growing tendency to escape from this purely physiological natural world and the favorite hips the way to escape is the use of digital media isn't it true that the world is just a matrix isn't it true that the world is just some sort of program can we alter it in our lives if we want there's a very modern secular belief in a way it's the concept of Buddhist rebirth in its secular digital version we just can reboot our lives Karl Marx simply called this alienation and friendo secularization and even rationality can turn itself against us part of what science discovered is complexity now complexity does not mean it's just very complicated complexity refers to a quality of dynamic adaptive systems with many elements and they are all interdependent and influence each other whether for example climate financial systems neurons in the brain these systems are by made by nature not predictable I can't go into that but you can show that these complex systems will probably never be predictable so in order to cope with complexity which we have to do if we want to act ethically today we have to find new ways of teaching education and finally ways of growing in wisdom and compassion now what is ethics first of all ethics is not morals why because ethics commonly is understood as the description or critical reflection or the theory of moral values and moral behavior so you can act morally but you're very bad in having a theory about it so you can act morally without ethics in a way ethics means to examine arguments and justifications so ethics consists in the rational construction in the critical examination of values arguments and rules the hope is that ethics helps to solve moral problems there are two major principles in work in ethics one is called deontological ethics that's Greek and just means that what has to be done a highest value and you never discuss this value don't lie and never do anything else but it's lying always good so there is a second principle it's called the teleological principle which means you have to achieve a goal so whether or not you reach this goal you can empirically test you don't need thinking you just look at what you did and look at reality today that's usually called consequentialism the consequences are the ultimate basis for judgment about rightness or wrongness of what you do I think today in our Western civilization's what we have done is we basically have a so-called deontological nuclear's that that is we have basic rights which we do not discuss anymore the human rights that's the framework in an our everyday life and practical as practical guidelines we are very pragmatic consequentialists so we mix the two as this Holiness pointed out yesterday we are social beings from the very beginning we can cooperate have empathy and be compassionate yet there's always another side as wealth pointed out there is a tremendous agreement in the basic orchestration of life for example it's good it's better to do good than bad it's not good to kill the guy next door unless you are at war then it's okay even desirable it's not a great it's not a great idea to steal from your neighbor unless he's an enemy it's not smart to have sex with your neighbor's wife but rape in war is quite okay even though it's banned by international laws so actions can be bad and good at the same time that which is what is bad within the in-group that is for your friends your ethnic group your team it's quite often permitted or even demanded when you deal with the out-group the others the enemy is the bad the evil you know the Chinese the Tibetans the women the men which leads me to a last remark on ethics maharaja Netsky the famous german literary critic who escaped the killing in the Warsaw Ghetto and Ashe wits told me several times you can read and recite Goethe and like Mozart's piano sonatas and operas but all this love for art did not present prevent Nazis with a very high education to stand at the ramp in Auschwitz and kill the neighbors who happen to be Jews so there seems to be no way to prevent us once and for all from doing that there is no automatic direct line from rational understanding to be good to actual doing there is one explanation our problem is that our brain is branded in a very simple distinctions between in-groups and out-groups and that's an animal heritage even Jane Goodale the famous British primatologists used to start when she talked about Apes which she liked very much with the short introduction saying that chimpanzees are very brutal very cruel and they are in fact mobbing each other recent research shows that members of one in group which kill other chimpanzees from an out group show not only aggressive aggression by the high level of oxytocin that's a hormone we humans have as well and it's used to build up social bonding so killing can be connected at the same time with social bonding and nice feelings now the last point and I make it short what is secular ethics secular means there are no gods or God there are no magical powers there's just this universe all norms all values all rules and institutions a hundred percent man-made it also means everything is ultimately interconnected and complex and that there is an evolution of constant change of nature culture religion and ethics now that's bad on the one hand on the other hand it gives us the possibility to continuously improve the essentials of a secular ethics are as well Singh appointed out already rational discourse empirical testing and that's true for east and west then democratic institutions that's what the West has brought as a good result plus motivation and secular spiritual training that is what is coming from the east and that all hopefully adds to a global secular East and West Essex thank you [Applause] wonderful Thanks so uh yup okay next speaker next speaker little Hertz psychologist she did research as a neuroscientist with Java Lazare at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at Harvard Medical School her research focuses to uncover the neural and mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of meditation yoga mindfulness both in clinical setting settings and in individual ones she was trained as an MS be our teacher at the center of mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts at the Medical School the center was founded by John kabat-zinn she did research in Deason at university and besides her research she's teaching as a mindfulness trainer and this founder of the I M Institute the Institute for mindfulness the a in German is for our Tomcat and meditation in Munich litter hurts thank you welcome thank you and I feel very honored that I have the opportunity to present to you your holiness today some of the findings that we have from the neuroscience research on mindfulness and to present that to you the audience and when we talk of mindfulness I mean what Wolfe Singh I just spoke about as the practice for really for self exploration as well as a practice for the cultivation of the mind and in research context with typically defined mindfulness as the awareness that arises when we fully bring our attention into the present moment so when we really become aware of what is happening right here right now and when we encounter that with a specific internal attitude that is characterized by acceptance by curiosity and by kindness and I think as you all know mindfulness has made its way into a number of mindfulness based programs over the past 20-30 years and there is increasing research activity going on with these mindfulness praise programs here is a graph that shows the number of publications per year and as you can see here it really only began about 10 years ago or so that the number of studies began to increase but it has increased exponentially since then so it is a very active research field right now but it's also very young at the same time and I want to just emphasize that we're only at the beginning of understanding from a scientific perspective what mindfulness practice can do to psychological aspects and to the brain the next slide shows some of the research findings that we have that document the beneficial effects that mindfulness practice can have on individuals first of all named that we know it can really reliably reduce stress and along with that see changes in the physiology that are related to this reduced stress such as an improved improvements and coronal heart diseases or improved immune function here's a study from the lab of Richard Davidson which I know who I know is a good friend of yours we also know from the field of mental health that mindfulness is beneficial for reducing depressive episodes in depressed patients it can reduce anxiety symptoms and it's also effective in pain management these are the three best validated findings that we have in the field of mental health in healthy individuals we frequently see an increased well-being and life satisfaction we have more recently turned to the effects on compassion and we'll hear a lot more about that today so we do see in studies increased compassion with even relatively short forms of training we know about improved communication skills and even have some findings of enhanced creativity following some forms of mindfulness practice so with these with this wealth of beneficial findings we also have to say that some findings are still contradictory and there are a lot of open questions so we definitely need a lot more research to be done there but we also see very promising effects pre Amin preliminary promising effects so the question that arises is the question how does it actually work how what are the mechanisms that underlie mindfulness practice to exert the beneficial effects and we my colleagues and I have tried to sort of translate that into terminology of Western psychology and have suggested this framework where we suggest or the field I would say suggests that mindfulness works in part by enhancing attention regulation skills it improves emotion regulation and it has an impact on self-awareness and we could summarize these three components under the term of self-regulation that is it has an impact on the way we regulate ourselves our internal reactions and our behavior and I want to now briefly talk about these three subjects so to say and I will also want to get a little bit into the the neuroplasticity research we know and have seen over the last year how plastic the brain is and how changes can be supported through practice many of my colleagues and I used magnetic resonance imaging canto McAfee to look into the brain and see the changes here so attention regulation I think most of us will agree that it is an area that becomes increasingly important in the time of constant stimulus overload that we are faced in our societies that is not only the case in school settings but virtually in every dimension of our lives were really faced with an enormous stimulus overload so we have to deal with that and we want to keep the ability to really focus and on that what is relevant and what we feel is worth pursuing in this moment we really want to be able to keep our focus on what we believe is worth while focusing on and meditation practice is really in the first step also includes attention training to Train the ability to really stay with what is aimed at and research shows that intention capacities are indeed improved through meditation practice a number of studies using psychological tests have demonstrated that one of the components of attention that gets trained relatively early on and the practice is called the executive attention and that is the ability to disregard distractions so the ability to focus on the goal that we have sad and disregard whatever distracts that focus so we have begun to look into the brain and see what happens in the brain as people improve their executive attention we know one brain region supports executive attention is called the anterior cingulate cortex so we have wondered would that be enhanced through mindfulness practice and through a number of studies at this point we know at this point yes it does get strengthened by meditation training here is just one example of a study that I did in Giessen quite close to Frankfurt here where we saw that experienced meditators have greater brain activity in that area what do we have a number of findings here from various labs and the conclusion in current meta analyses is that yes we do believe at this point in time that attention regulation and the anterior cingulate cortex function is strengthened through mindfulness practice okay so this is an obvious relevant area to all of us when we need to focus in busy work settings or we want to keep a threat of a conversation that's where that becomes relevance the second topic that I want to talk about is emotion regulation and what does it mean when we talk about mindful emotion regulation a first aspect of that and the the important first aspect is this sort of a self exploration this aspect of really becoming aware of what it is that I'm actually feeling in the moment which is not trivial at all in our societies we're typically not taught to really turn towards ourselves and notice our emotions so that would be the first step and then to learn to encounter our emotions with curiosity with openness and with acceptance so really fully embracing it being there with it with kindness rather than having that feeling that I should rather suppress my emotions or it's not okay what I'm feeling so really getting into a different contact with it and I would say that's I might from my understanding that's probably what the Buddha meant when he was talking about reducing resistance or attachments that cause suffering so as a way to reduce the suffering when we talk of the brain give you this very rough picture here we know that some brain regions are involved in emotion regulation first of all the amygdala part of the limbic system gets activated when we experience emotions such as fear at fires to help us get out of that dangerous situation the other brain region that then comes in to help us regulate is the prefrontal cortex part of the more higher developed areas of the brain and that prefrontal cortex has the ability to regulate the activity of the amygdala so what is important for successful we could say emotion regulation is that the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala work together well so we have looked at that to explore whether mindfulness training in anxiety patients in this case in this study whether mindfulness can produce a change in those related networks after eight weeks of training and what we see here so those were anxiety patients going through an mindfulness based stress reduction program for eight weeks what we see in the brain is that there is indeed a change that we see in the magnetic resonance imaging pictures a change in the connectivity or we could say in the way these brain areas communicate with one another so they work together more closely and interestingly this pattern of a changed activation in the brain that we see here is not what we typically see when people down regulate their anxiety or so when they suppress feelings we would expect a different pattern this is not what we see here what we see is a pattern that we interpret to be more representative of something like more like a monitoring or an awareness well we're aware of the emotions but accepting them and not suppressing and interestingly this goes along with reduced anxiety symptoms so it does have a clear relevance for well-being and can help patients suffering from anxiety to come to the third point of the self-awareness and that I would understand is having two aspects and the first aspect is a body awareness or enhanced awareness of emotions turning to ourselves interoceptive awareness and we know from there's not a lot of a lot of literature there but this is a study from Tanya singer for example showing that we see with training enhanced body and interoceptive awareness and we also see that there is a brain or region involved the insula that represents interoceptive awareness and that is typically modified with mindfulness practice and we see it as involved so that's one of the aspects the other and this is where we come to also of what we've touched on yesterday in your presentation your holiness the relationship that we have with the self and that is a very important and a very strong effect of how that could make a difference in our world I believe first of all we frequently see more self-esteem so people are feeling more friendly with themselves more self compassion with mindfulness practice but then we also see less of an identification with that static sense of I so less of that attachment or holding on to this I with the mindfulness practice and rather people focus on the larger whole on a connectedness with a larger whole we also see there's not a lot of literature on the neuroscience aspect of this but some studies point in that direction that we see altered activity in brain regions that are related with self relevant processing so it seems that practitioners are doing less of this egoistic mental activity of a narrative self so to say and I think we can imagine or it becomes clear that this is a good basis for the experience of more connected and a basis for compassion and relationship to relate with others and also a willingness to help and we will hear more about this in the other presentations today I just want to mention because she's not here with us today Tania sing us study I know your holiness you're very familiar with that I just want to say it for the audience because she's not here today she has a great project going on at the Max Planck Institute and Leipzig looking at a one year practice and see how that can have an impact on social relationships and on compassion so you can look this up for yourself and just to conclude so we have a lot of promising findings here we have some suggested mechanisms of how mindfulness practice can work and it becomes obvious that those are relevant not only for health and well-being but certainly for school settings for the way we interact at work for example and for society at large we're only just beginning to understand the neuroscience components of this and I want to end this talk with thanking with first of all the mind and life Institute for supporting a lot of our work and then you and the audience for your attention thank you Thank You Britta you get it I give it to you I give it to you our next speaker doesn't work okay does our next speaker is Kesha Lobsang Nagy he holds a degree from the prognostic monastery in South India completed his PhD at Emory University in the United States and his executive director of the Center for contemplative science and compassion based ethics at Emory University where his professor he's also co-founder of the Emirati bat partnership and in his work he focuses on traditional Buddhist and contemporary Western Approaches to emotions and their impact on wellness and in his presentation he will present you the framework for compassion based ethics at Emory University's Education Program which he was asked to develop at the request of His Holiness the see learning program your holiness it is always such an honor to present on some of the the work that your holiness so deeply values such as the secular ethics in education Emory University we are at Emory University we're very honored that your holiness has entrusted us to carry on this work by establishing the Center for contemplative science and compassion based ethics our president president Claire snug and the community at Emory sent their regards to your holiness my presentation today will focus on the framework for secular ethics in education what we refer to as so Schill emotional and ethical learning the world happiness report it is a report produced at the commission of United Nations in 2015 report they had a chapter that calls for promoting secular ethics and the author's there who are economists and educational scientists they present the need for a different way of measuring our progress so far we have focused on progress on the material terms but they see that progress must be measured on the degree that people experience happiness or the satisfaction in life and that they propose the old model of ethics itself sort of the top-down approach to ethics may not be relevant for today's multicultural society they very much see your holiness is vision for secular ethics that actually values the religious the value of the basic values that all religions emphasize but also the values that those without religion also see very important for her well-being so they caught your holiness from beyond religion where they said that for all its benefits in offering moral guidance in life religion is no longer adequate as a basis for Ethics many people no longer follow any religion in addition into this secular and multicultural societies any religion based answer to the problem or dialect or inner values could not be universal and so would be inadequate we need an approach to ethics that can be equally acceptable to those with religious faith and those without we need a secular ethics this year they produced another report on happiness in which they see what are the determinants for happiness what constitutes happiness looking at the adult population and if you your holiness can see from the right the adult satisfaction in life of course it depends on many factors there is economic factor that includes income education employment but also social factors like the crime the family life the partnering and the health physical as well as mental this all of these are important for flourishing or the well-being in adult life by the end of the term satisfaction life satisfaction but as they trace back what constitutes what word predicts in the child staff development for the you know the most important factor for happiness they find that mental health is actually the strongest predictor for the well-being more so than education and the income but in childhood what predicts happiness in the adulthood is not education its education is a worse predictor for adult happiness and well-being actually the behavior of the child and emotional state of the child these two seem to be the strongest predictor and what conditions of the environment help children develop emotional balance or the emotional health and whether hit behaviors they find not the family income not even the parenting but it is the health mental health of parents particularly of the the mother and the schooling the school environment seems to be very very important so in brief they conclude mental health is very important predictor for our well-being but adult mental health is very much predicted by childhood emotional health and behavior that in turn is informed by parents the parents mental health particularly of the mother and the school ambience of the schooling environment both primary and the secondary schools so therefore that they see that the education is very very important and the policymakers both at government and NGOs must focus on how to help students develop these skills and the mental health if it is such a strong predictor for our well-being in adult we see today our children but clearly in the adolescents aged 12 to 17 this time magazine in 2015 had an article that presented how widespread the mental health is today but clearly in the United States if you could see depression for example 3 million teens in age 12 to 17 had at least one episode of major depression 30 percent of girls and the 20% of boys in this age group had an anxiety disorder hopelessness which is a major predictor for depression 30 percent of adolescents in this age regularly have the feelings of sadness and the depression so what it shows is that in education today we do need an education that informs these skills so therefore at Emory University your holiness based on your writings the ethics for the new millennium and the beyond religion we have developed a framework for secular ethics in education that draws from these your writings and then it provides a structure based on Daniels involvement and the Peter thing is book called triple focus and it a new approach to education they have written this for the education the schools what it shows is that there is a need for what they call soft skills or the non cognitive skills sometimes they call like - such as compassion self-awareness their ability to regulate emotions and so forth and there is of course a big movement in the West today are called social-emotional learning this is a very big movement for the last 20-30 years a meta study recently found that in schools where they have social emotional learning curriculum actually the students there show 10% strong better pro-social behavior 10% less antisocial behaviors and even the equity academic achievement they do they have 11% higher academic achievement so the social-emotional and ethical learning our framework that we have developed based on your holiness vision and the writings and complemented of course by the emerging science scientific findings in the evolutionary biology neuroscience and cognitive sciences it basically presents the Daniel Goleman's model where he presents triple focus take inner focus other focus and outer focus basically has to do with inner focus about being aware of our own feelings and emotions in our inner life other focus about others as being social emotional social beings our ability to relate to others needs and feelings and emotions and outer focus to understand the context in which we the various events unfold from small to the large issues so there are freedom to kind of domains personal social and systems and these skills are for these three focuses of the three skill sets we can develop by awareness compassion and awareness and compassion when they come together can inform our behavior or the action and that is further kind of divided into nine components for example the per personal domain part their awareness relates to how in terms of the personal domain our awareness of our own emotions and thoughts and feelings that when it is understood in the context can help us relate to our own ups and downs and so forth so self compassion and then those can be developed through certain sets of practices for self-regulation which is important and the same thing in the social domain our interpersonal awareness is important that can lead to compassion and empathy destroyed the deeper empathy for others and through that we can learn how we can relate to others interact with others through your relationship skills and so forth and on the systemic level on the larger level interdependence is the concept that is indeed awareness of our interdependence interdependence appreciating that reality that can also lead to understanding on the global level how all of us all living beings have the same basic needs and so forth as you holliness emphasized about the importance of this understanding of oneness of the seven billion humans today and it's that kind of kind of perspective that it can lead to the actions or the engagement or the communal level or the global levels but as this work is very much based on understanding emotional life so therefore the map of emotions or the mind is the kind of central to it emotional literacy if you will to have that emotional hygiene and so we draw from the work of your Holiness's friend Paul Eggman the expert in emotion emotion and to inform our curriculum based on scientific understandings about emotion - how how we understand emotion its context and what trigger what kind of how we can see in the different degrees of emotion in the same family but also kind of triggers what kind of triggers trigger those emotions which this is very much drawn from the evolutionary kind of the perspective from this evolution biology and the sciences but our work also emphasizes very much on the the map of emotions that are found in the contemplative traditions like the indo-tibetan you know literature on mind and emotions and as there are various models that are we similar to one of the the texts with it even classifies the the mind in primary mind and the mental factor or the secondary mind that when it comes to the secondary or the mind or the mental factors they are like the 51 different kinds for example five of them Universal and so forth so there these are different categories of course and it's understanding about this kind of map of mind of age appropriate level perhaps not at the very heart of the young elementary school level but maybe high school and the college level can highly enhance our understanding of the emotions and they were thereby regulating and cultivating those mental states that may be healthy another way of looking at this is from the pramana literature in the invertebrate and Buddhist tradition or the psychology and that it has to do with it's a cognitive model how do we understand our mental state how do we relate to the world out there it could be a mistaken perception but how we correct them and then this process like this the six steps there it can be understood from something that is mistaken can be turned into a certain doubt to correct assumptions to then using logic and reasoning a critical thinking process to inform it an inferential understanding that can be further kind of deepen and eventually into the direct understanding and so forth so the see learning the social emotion and ethical learning itself it follows this the teaching strategy of the three kind of step learning process and that of course school environment is very important to create a compassionate classroom but then the knowledge itself is not simply to have the content knowledge that's on the received knowledge the order to initiative but what is important is then to help students to come up with their own understanding through critical thinking and use of reasoning and the various other activities and so forth but then eventually if the in this model the ethics is not so much about telling what should and what should not be done but rather in forming certain habits certain dispositions when you have developed those disposition then and become embodied then you would act appropriately so embodied knowledge is important that leads to the spontaneous engagement part of course in this curriculum we follow four threads scientific perspectives is very important informed by scientific evidence as your holiness see the base beside common sense and common experience scientific evidence as the basis for informing this form of knowledge critical thinking to arrive at the personal personal kind of knowledge created together is important but to take that to a deeper level reflective practices like the contemplative practices meditations and so forth and then of course the cooperative learning English learning was that students can work together and the true writings and poetry's and music but also service-learning and so forth and your holiness what we have happen so far able to achieve is we have finalized the framework at the framework that can easily be adapted to various cultures and to suit their local needs and so forth that of the framework is complete learning experience correct curriculum itself for the elementary and middle and high school level initial versions of the curriculum is also developed but we are at the face of refining those and what we have done so far yes this year in July and August we we offered teachers training because the training the teachers is very important if the teachers are not aware of this knowledge themselves but and particularly if they themselves are not equipped with these inner skills it would be very hard to embody and to impart that knowledge so therefore we see the teacher preparation workshops very important we offer four of them three in the United States beginning in Atlanta but that also a period that's near Chicago and in cholera another in Colorado and then one in India and these are the the teachers who went through this training for the 62 or so in Atlanta area that is some in India and about 30 in Peoria and the tradition in Colorado areas and then at this point what we are doing is providing them small sections of those lessons to those trained teachers and that they are bringing that into the classroom and then we will collect their feedback to further update and refine the curriculum and our goal is to comply that by next summer so that we can have a more formal scientific kind of the pilot studies in schools studying for next year I just want to conclude this with the aspiration that your holiness have has expressed in your writings in NP beyond religion this initiative is certainly very ambitious our goals is really ambitious if it is helpful to to bring it to a global level of course but it will take time and we are very deeply kind of encouraged by the vision your holiness has for this as you mentioned my hope and wish is that one day formal education will pay attention to what I call education of the heart just as we take for granted that needs to acquire proficiency in the basic academic subjects I'm hopeful that a time will come when we take we can take it for granted the children will learn as part of their school curriculum the indispensability of inner values such as love compassion justice and forgiveness and your holiness with your guidance and the guidance of many of our advisers that deeply are convinced the work of biblical means in the vision that you provide for the education with a weight very encouraged and and deeply committed to making this initiative you know as successful as it can be and and you will request your continued guidance for this endeavor thank you very much thank you what [Applause] yeah after all these different inputs we would be happy if you could comment on them to put it as a Wyatt question of course indeed I really admire is the experienced they people the presentation wonderful your presentation including history so that presentation create more confusion in my mind but grateful I think it is quite nature initially if we investigate more so hosta 10 by Shueisha thousand said God detail did the reality nothing exists by objectivity accorded controversies and position typical philosophy also did say that so too much too detailed then you can find what is reality everything you should do to utter factor it work but itself nothing exists by independently like that so it's a scholar investigate investigate deeper deeper deeper then very difficult to I don't identify tree like that so in any way I really appreciate now more than what people in America including some universities some institution in India as well some institution now seriously now looking in this field education about external thing we highlight a lot sufficient but we had also suffer the develop and then the thought this is a mental level the modern education not adequate so you should cause over add something about that through research analyze and I think of common people I think it's more acceptable designed to be finding so that's my last offer ideas I have serious sort of because of the discussion which scientist oh thank you Father Oh dad so I believe the person it is natives must based on our common sense common experience and then scientific finding so the words the meaning or secular and rasa to do with me this is you know secular hmm doesn't matter say what what is your definition achieves oh it's the science of the rules of conduct and secular ethics would be an empirically based ethics based on inside I feel it achieves say basically including animal incent everyone want happiness joyfulness so any action brings some happiness comfortable that's ethically action that depend on our motivation so any mental action verb reaction physical action which brings some benefit to other some happiness to other that's n is our own mental action verb reaction physical action creates more pain other that's unethical so and always a religious tradition I usually describe existing world religion is human religion so all religion carry a message of love and for that different religion utilize different reasons different method but basic goal is same now today out of seven billion human being 1 billion non-believer and six billion suppose believer but lot of mischievous I'm on the pyramid so this is clearly shows lack of conviction about the real teaching of religion religion just surfaced way some prayer some rituals that I think sometimes that is harmful to create my reality if we stress the real essence of religion love forgiveness tolerance but then you see it is impossible follow definitely tradition you see create more because of the division and the fighting and finally killing so therefore now in order to have believer more sense a believer I had a non-believer or compassionate human being both and how we really need proper education systematic way to educate warm-heartedness compassion is key factor firstly more happiness one individual and eventually better health and in the family in the community and finally seven billion human being so that's all I don't know so I really appreciate all people who really acidic carrying some sort of research work or making clear presentation everyone this value so thank you dr. Joley what is it all nest Rhetta we have time right we have real yeah totally deserving no question answer yes yes you have believed yes I kick in instead of helping me [Applause] thank you for me actually now we're both getting older and older but but I'm quite sure we will see all right few times in future hey thank you said bad all set battle sito so something awful I think you should keep historically Mongolian and we Tibetan we I think almost like dream brother sister and you I did we both have the casa de as a one walk yeah Casa both casa that's a birthmark and I was drawn to Hungary and also have that I don't know so thank you I think Buddhism rich I do I think the more I think Mongolia and Tibet then we become more or more I see right there data read they say becoming more peaceful nonviolent before Buddhism reach we are quite warrior with carries sword and spear whenever we face some resistance thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you or venomous also [Applause] okay thank you thank you thank you thank you no thank you no or business now come this is it so even if philosophy is confusing sometimes all the - weizsäcker voice singer they both pointed out that science or secularization in themselves are very ambivalent they can be used for good and they can be used for bad the same is true for techniques like mindfulness based stress reduction they can be used to help people but they also can be used to / to turn people into more productive machines in an enterprise so how do you think could we cope with that I have all question to you I think little later part of 20th century the scientists and especially brain specialist you see only brain mind is because of the production or product of brain later part of 20th century now some scientists are now begin to feel oh whatever you call mind or some other word but there is some thing which affect our brain so now the beginning of this to the first century this is some I think more research work there so what is your opinion well I think you're right in saying that we believe that the mind is an emergent property of the mechanics of the brain without working of the brain no mind no cognition no mental phenomena but what we have probably underestimated the neuroscientists is that there is a reciprocal interaction between although all our minds because we as persons we interact with each other we create a cultural world which is a spiritual world mental well world an immaterial world that expec on our minds on our brains and this is perhaps what people think is this top-down causation the effects of mental constructs on brain functions and behavior so it all started of course with matter and with neuronal processing SS yes but we have this feedback loop through culture through society through concepts through beliefs which are very very important in motivating our behavior so this is I think nowadays but it may be different tomorrow - that's right as a result Oh was it a more closer relation or discussion with scientists I really find found I'm not a scientist they're very unbiased investigate investigate liberties of course or the scatter s'en not accept easily through investigation so they're not Casa de biases always very uture sometimes religious person sometimes a little bit sort of the biased like that I feel so I have admiration now what was the definition of brain what's the definition of brain brain brain brain well there's this this organ made up of 10 - 10 into the 11th neurons and connections and all the nervous system that goes with this child after sort of conception run after one week two weeks three weeks are there any sort of feeding or not very early on probably not you need a certain minimum of of substrate of nerve cells of interactions and so can you say brain just as a conception of conception no brain but there was the seed of brain there but first month second month third month and gradually brain you see because of the develop yeah and some small insect like mosquito any brain oh yeah Casa probably also has some rudimentary feelings and it's it's a living being with it has value we assign some ethical status to animals of course different religion if and opinions I think instead I think we cannot say this ethical ethical thing well they are objects of Jessica concern survival they are also life there are also no car well these ideas change over the centuries I think we have become much more sensitive to all these issues than in the very beginning of our civilizations we start to become aware of the interconnectedness of the whole living system then they were particle these plants or rocks and our brain shuttle of miners of level same same particle which Kasota forming our brain and particle which formed in plant or rocks I think because of the subatomic way I I heard these quacks quacks number one number two number three number four like that this smallest sort of particle so on that level no differences may be and this is what pump species say that consciousness is everywhere it's the primary source of everything a neurobiologist could not confirm this he would say there is inanimate matter that self-organizes into complex reproducing reproducible structures which is living this is to reproduce yourself and then become more and more complex and I think you see it where the child grows up the brain becomes more and more completely you see how more and more functions define come express right responsibility starts in the brain especially karate certain of our brain our human brain is bigger than elephant brain other other part of brain of course elephant brain is much much bigger yeah but then intelligence these are our brain is because isn't it connectivity is very different and complexity of elephant brain is small smaller than ours it's just very big because elephant is big it's so now my question is the basically the ultimate sort of substance on this plant and our brain I feel is the same the matter is the same mattias but the organization is different I decide so what is the mid so what is the major factor the particle the combination and then eventually some develop consciousness some not develop consciousness what's the major factor it's the complexity of the brain monkeys have very similar brains as we yes but there are certain structures missing they have no language no really differentiated language and we have it their ability to abstract is very limited so they were not able to build culture but we were able to build culture yes and then translate and transmit our cultural knowledge to our offspring so the spiral of cultural evolution started and that made us very very different from all the animal kingdom which also brought us a lot of problems unfortunately but we are really in this sense very distinct from our nearest neighbors because we have belief systems we have cathedrals we have religion asana and all those things which do not exist in the animal kingdom then something some occasion I ask scientist the prostitute conception sorry no conception can you see the mothers would say one normal no so defect and then father Simeon mother's egg perfect so in deaths and the dead circumstances the meeting take place semen and egg can you say 100% life start or not that's a very good and critical and unanswerable question we discussed this a lot also in the Vatican because you know about all these ethical implications of stopping life during its development abortion and the question is is life only starting when these two come together in the Jewish belief system they say the the the organism becomes only an ethical object or later during development in the one some say that yeah the genes per se contain the program of life Assad the Genesis continent over the egg or of the semen contains the program the blueprint of life so this is already something that is to be preserved don't ask me you should know so easy a miser my curiosity and also a little bit argument say in the past some occasion I asked doctor if you see dad cuz I'll meeting take place 100% sure life start then they say no then we develop we have to ask what's third fatter yeah well I have a partial answer this the same and already is a living organism it swims yes as sensors it is it is a living a living being so there's I mean there's a good day listen for life what did each sperm have mind I don't think so but it's little but I think they use one drop of course of the semen I think there are many as other several thousand Casa Jobos million sperm so very lively no so so they among amount of cause of sperm whale sperm one for successfully enter in that egg then concept take place concentrate conception take place so some other cannot enter what was the factor well they they so which makes the one win yes the chance to some extent then the speed of swimming then they have sensors they can find out where areas so you can call this some innate intelligence but they don't have a mind thank you friendly friendly speaking of course frankly speaking my question also will be subtle because of complicated question answer also not very clear thank you one of the things we heard is that obviously one major problem is complexity everyone mentioned mentioned complexity as a how I would be interested in all of your opinion how do you think we will be able to manage that because while singer said that there is no final goal of evolution we just don't know what happens that's what a lot of scientists say but we also know that we have to deal with complexity or finance system is complex our brains are complex even the interaction of Education and the social system we live in is very complex because it's a lot of components influencing each other how do you think we will be able to cope with this complexity the scientific sort of way to explain things through evolution human sorry human being through evolution at the beginning just a different form of animal or something that jellyfish then gradually is the circumstances and including climate all these caso de influenced and different form of body like that then also brain develop like that and deaf survey I can first try to see sea animal then gradually land then doing summary we gradually some wing bridge will just change and to hand so like that this our evolution isn't it yeah so some Buddhist texts say or something different that now have some challenge evolution just matching Kasota there's evidence there the one occasion in Australia some television team came to see me and asked me do you believe dinosaurs I said oh yes of course you can see there was a car a bone for these things I surprised the later some even told me some Christians are a believer the world created by God five four five thousand years somewhere that so seven millions years ago you see will does not exist so similarly some Buddhist text you see saying something different and these fell in this case we must accept the scientific finding so that's why I described myself half Buddhist monk how would have scientist so I believe the scientific finding the recipients so we have to accept that we cannot argue but they're still a problem because we know in the history of science we have every now and then come to conclusions that turned out to be wrong even though we thought we had the empirical evidence so even scientific evidence is still a matter of to some extent a matter of belief there are certain theories that cannot be proven by experiment because you cannot repeat the history like evolution for example so what what is considered true is the opinion of those who think they are experts if they agree right so one should not overestimate the power of science I think the worst thing that we are now experiencing in the moment is that we learn and this is the question that get asked we now know for sure that systems that we have constructed our social systems that life itself depends on complex interactions that are per definition not predictable in their evolution not because we don't have enough knowledge but because their dynamics are a way of a kind that cannot be analytically solved this is the fallacy of nonlinear dynamics of complex systems and so it's very tragic for us that we have to act we have to design educational programs we have to decide what we should do with our children what we should do with our world without it and at the same time knowing that we cannot know exactly what we should do and therefore I think we need advice from from your world that through other methods of introspection and analysis of the weaving of the minds and of the needs that we have as human beings can give us advice on what we should emphasize I mean many things are trivial you all want to become happy but the question is how do we do this so how does program I won't take some question from audience what do you think of course the reputation of time yeah but I think I want I prefer you some questions I think no question I think we have a microphone there's a microphone yes and I propose we do it as yesterday left and right if you have answers sorry questions well maybe a bouncers and don't be shy storage is this nice OVD let's inspire mm yeah does via MOV refers illumines Alice Eva does coherence were clear on niche and I never been on some hats and Hammer I really need a clear and kernan when the inferno team had some forum Virdon Virdon via Danny and son come so the question like I try to translate so the question is aren't we focusing too much on the brain instead of the heart because that's more much more unsecure in terms of science don't we repeat the mistake that we have done centuries before I hope that was correct I did a hard control by brain so we are now this moment is it discussing about consciousness or these things so mainly with the brain then they usually we use the word heart of heartness they say but that's actually sort of sense of love or sense of concern of others well-being there's so I think we use the word altruism so we cannot explain where altruism come from heart from brain brain oh yeah that's true so so I don't know because usually zv which effort is ohm heart good heart like that but actually hot just a panting and provide blood to brain and brain cause of the remain alive so long blood circulation there so hard physically you see t just upon being isn't it so in any way in any way altruism no matter we pinpoint what is the altruism what we experience that the child even in mother's womb the mother's peace of mind positive event mother's anger too much stress some effect to unborn child isn't it so therefore the warm warm heartedness or loving-kindness is give hara as i mentioned earlier there's a lot of problem which we are facing kidding Anglet millions of poor people and starvation or lack of sense of concern there will be just think me me me my nation - so now we have to we have this little gentle this problem but way this problem not the technology but ultimately change here ok but I think what I wanted to say something sure have some answer for can i ladies may just say so this because my understanding is that it's it's really a whole complete system and by taking it apart into brain and heart and body we're really not doing justice to the complex and complete system that we are and I think from neuroscience perspective we are also understanding that altruism compassion has a big component of turning into our own bodies so turning into our own bodies turning to our hearts actually and that of course is represented in the brain but turning to our hearts and to our body might have an effect on even improving compassion because we need to understand that we how we feel what what it feels like to be in our own bodies in order to then also under feel into another body another being so I think this completeness and this feeling into our hearts into our bodies can actually improve uh tourism but of course that is then represented in the brain and change might also will also happen there but ya know Gucci shoe jhagadu the pill indiscernible much [Applause] so there's a Tibetan saying which goes like look at your own body and then try not to harm others oh I have one silly question Oh silly like that funny I just felt too scientist or no scientist here one sign is here both nose is something subjects precious so some connection your brain with nose and then also this is the great scientist American scientist or such rigid division also you see big nose I thought the size of nose also some connection with your brain some question yeah no question yeah yes I guess and a lot of people eyes did a crazy question but I I guess you can handle with it and do you believe in other species and another planet which can maybe help us to develop our our earth of course we cannot see we cannot prove you see a soda but gasps dad sir I do within this Milky Way there is the merest means of star and East are there is some small different planets there and then limitless glasses we cannot say only this glassy this will exist human being difficult to say so yes or there may be different form of and different form of life yes yes not that so you believe in it yes okay and if you if you accept you see oh there may be different form of life in different sort of star all then better if you say only this exists only because of the present life existed on this planet not much reason like that [Applause] Teru now he says organizer he says time for lunch and we've all together ledge ledge Franco can be mental hepato technology capture jean-micheljane Tony company Dyneema some revenue coding can embody coach in La Mirada Carnegie come back soon and remember you can be the Tanabata gajanan to d GG command conversion and identity as educating be judicious even the doctor Kawasaki potential cinnamon do color planned a gentleman a new unique identity mama Indira Gandhi tarnishing cutting she took the survey and Hadouken company honey cake on the wing eating 2013 and consume regular Johnny new to chicken energy throughout the melon 2003 so finally finally at the end of this morning session I would like in the name of Tibet house Germany and in the name of our cultural foundation say thank you so much his holiness you're a great inspiration because of your strengths your vision and your warm hardnesses so we are deeply blessed and honored to be your host and thank you also the speakers of this morning session and we have as a gift for his holiness we have a Karthik and a pen from the brand more blow it's not Kyle ash it's a it's a European Kyle ash maybe and symbol for you that you should write and teach in the future many many years thank you so much thank you could you say to say to say thank you myah touch touch yeah when I greeting my friend you see who have big nose then I usually use the practice because our the Maori tradition Tashia so whenever I met a rigid division is those I always telling them telling telling him and his wife also is a big nose so there are nose equipped to practice that stretch thank you nose ok ok ok ok [Laughter] each other you will equipped allow your horse [Laughter] thank you dear my friend many years yes [Laughter] [Applause] thank you here come from very small village in kikuno Oh eventually he joined aa big monastic incision and carry study so become good scholar so originally monk like he this will be among food so he enjoyed more freedom now thank you come come thanks thanks so thank you thank you very much thank you

Channel: Dalai Lama

Views: 68,577

Keywords: dalai, lama, science, buddhism, buddhist, perspective, dialogue, discussion, frankfurt, germany, 2017

Id: X8XD3tWiFgk

Length: 155min 14sec (9314 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2017