Day 1 Afternoon Discussion

Dialogue 3|Session 3

Day 1 Afternoon Discussion

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Overview

The afternoon dialogue examines whether compassion can provide a sufficient foundation for ethics and whether moral principles must depend on religious or metaphysical beliefs. Sharon Salzberg presents the Buddhist view that compassion arises from recognizing the shared wish to be free from suffering, while the Dalai Lama argues that compassion is a natural human capacity that can be cultivated without religion but must be joined with wisdom, equality, and respect for others’ rights. The participants compare religious, rationalist, and consequentialist approaches to morality; consider how ethical principles can address social inequality, human rights, and harmful institutions; and debate the responsibilities of scientists whose work may contribute to destructive technologies. Francisco Varela connects these questions to biology, suggesting that cooperation, identity, and interdependence within the immune system offer a useful analogy for society: just as the body can harm itself when it fails to recognize its interconnected parts, people may cause suffering when they fail to recognize their connection with others.

Speakers

Daniel Goleman

Daniel Goleman, PhD, is a psychologist and science writer best-known for his worldwide best-seller Emotional Intelligence, published in 40 languages. He taught at Harvard University before becoming an editor and journalist, covering the brain and behavioral science for the New York Times. He is a co-founder of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning at the University of Illinois, and co-director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University. For two years he traveled in India studying Buddhist and other spiritual systems of psychology, the first year as a Harvard Traveling Fellow, the second as a Research Fellow of the Social Science Research Council. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has received many awards for his writing. He is the author of numerous books, including The Meditative Mind, Destructive Emotions, Social Intelligence, and, most recently, Ecological Intelligence.

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Francisco Varela

Francisco J. Varela (1946-2001) co-founded the Mind & Life Institute in 1987. Born in Chile, he received his PhD in Biology from Harvard University in 1970. Trained as a biologist, mathematician, and philosopher, he wrote and edited numerous books and journal articles on biology, neurology, cognitive science, mathematics, and philosophy. Francisco introduced the concept of autopoiesis to biology and supported embodied philosophy, viewing human cognition and consciousness in terms of the enactive structures in which they arise. His work popularized within the field of neuroscience the concept of neurophenomenology, which requires observers to examine their own conscious experience using scientifically verifiable methods. His book The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (1991), co-authored with Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch, is considered a classic in the field of cognitive science, offering pioneering phenomenological connections and introducing the Buddhism-informed enactivist and embodied cognition approach. In 2004, Mind & Life launched the Francisco J. Varela Research Grants to support the examination of contemplative techniques and their application to reducing human suffering and promote flourishing.

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His Holiness The Dalai Lama

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.

Bio dialogues

Lee Yearley

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Sharon Salzberg

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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