Day 3 Afternoon Discussion - Mind & Life Institute

Dialogue 3|Session 8

Overview

The dialogue explores self-contempt and low self-esteem, which Sharon Salzberg, Daniel Brown, and Jon Kabat-Zinn describe as common and deeply rooted problems in Western culture. They explain how negative inner dialogue, childhood experiences, weakened community ties, and cultural or religious influences can lead people to feel unworthy, sometimes resulting in withdrawal or outward aggression. Mindfulness and loving-kindness practices are presented as ways to recognize self-critical thoughts without treating them as truth, develop greater balance, and include oneself within compassion. The conversation then broadens to distinguish healthy self-confidence from arrogance and to examine how compassion should address harmful behavior without condemning the person. The Dalai Lama explains that ethical actions must be judged through motivation, context, wisdom, and consequences, especially in exceptional cases involving force or violence. Although compassionate intervention may sometimes be justified, he emphasizes that violence is dangerous, carries serious unintended effects, and should generally be avoided.

Dialogue 3
12 sessions
November 7, 1990
Dharamsala, India
ML3_Day 3 - PM_Discussion |docx|
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Speakers

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Tenzin Gyatso, the14th Dalai Lama, is the leader of Tibetan Buddhism and a spiritual leader revered worldwide. He was born on July 6, 1935, in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. Born to a peasant family, he was recognized at the age of two, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lamas are manifestations of the Buddha of Compassion, who choose to reincarnate for the purpose of serving human beings. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989, he is universally respected as a spokesman for the compassionate and peaceful resolution of human conflict. He has traveled extensively, speaking on subjects including universal responsibility, love, compassion and kindness. Less well known is his intense personal interest in the sciences; he has said that if he were not a monk, he would have liked to be an engineer. As a youth in Lhasa it was he who was called on to fix broken machinery in the Potala Palace, be it a clock or a car. He has a vigorous interest in learning the newest developments in science, and brings to bear both a voice for the humanistic implications of the findings, and a high degree of intuitive methodological sophistication.

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Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. did his doctoral work in molecular biology at MIT, in the laboratory of the Nobel Laureate Salvador Luria. Kabat-Zinn is Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (in 1995), and (in 1979) its world-renown Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic. He is the author of 14 books, published in over 45 languages. His work has contributed to a growing movement of mindfulness into mainstream institutions such as medicine, psychology, health care, neuroscience, schools, higher education, business, social justice, criminal justice, prisons, the law, technology, government, and professional sports. Over 700 hospitals and medical centers around the world now offer MBSR. Jon lectures and leads mindfulness workshops and retreats around the world.

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Sharon Salzberg has been teaching meditation retreats worldwide for over 30 years. She is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and The Forest Refuge, a new center for long term meditation practice.

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