By Annysa Johnson
Compassion, kindness, the ability to forgive and to feel a sense of community are among the universal traits of a healthy mind, the Dalai Lama told a crowd of more than 1,000 Sunday at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison.
And the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader suggested that science may succeed in understanding the “oneness of humanity,” where religions, whose divisions can obscure teachings on the subject, sometimes fail.
The Dalai Lama spoke as part of a weekend of events marking the public opening of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds.
Founded in 2008, the center will use the tools of neuroscience, including brain imaging, to study such qualities as kindness and compassion, and the effects of contemplative practices, including meditation, on the brain.
Research already in the pipeline includes studies on the effects of meditation and calming breathing techniques on schoolchildren, veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and prison inmates transitioning back into society.
In an unscripted conversation, moderated by bestselling author and psychologist Daniel Goleman, the Dalai Lama and center founder and director Richard Davidson explored the concept of a healthy mind, its relationship to physical health and the role of science in understanding and promoting practices that improve mental well-being.
“One of the things we’ve learned as scientists is there’s a relationship between happiness and physical health,” said Davidson, a neuroscientist and psychologist who credits the Dalai Lama, whom he first met in 1992, with inspiring the idea for the center.
“What we don’t understand is how that emotion comes to be and what changes in the brain lead to changes in the body,” he said.
The Dalai Lama stressed the importance of forgiveness and reaching children while they are young, before they develop the biases that separate people.
Davidson touched on some of the early research in the field, saying studies suggest that regulating emotions improve mental clarity; that compassion improves the immune system; and that people who are forgiving, who “don’t hang onto their anger,” have fewer heart problems.
“The connection between the brain and the heart is enhanced by compassionate practice, especially when people are exposed to human suffering,” he said.
The trio sat in wingback chairs on the stage of the center, along with an interpreter who assisted the Dalai Lama.
The Buddhist monk sat cross-legged in his maroon robes, wearing a red Wisconsin Badgers cap presented to him by the Madison Youth Choir, which performed earlier in the program.
Some questions were too great even for him, who drew laughs in suggesting at one point that Davidson put him on the payroll.
Asked by Goleman what he thought the most useful line of study for the center would be, he answered, “That I don’t know. I think, if you pay me a high salary and for several months I stay here, then I may have something to say.”
