Upper Story: On the Road to Well-Being

Zuzu Flavius

An investigation into the mental health status of South Africans

has revealed that one third of all South Africans

have mental illnesses.

Australia is hiding a shocking secret

and it’s one we really need to talk about.

Every week five kids, five,

commit suicide.

In the past thirty years the opening up of China has been very rapid

and people feel depression.

It is unprecedented.

WHO has declared India to be the most depressed country in the world

with 36% of Indians admitting to battling depression.

27% of citizens in the European Union, more than one in four,

suffer from mental health problems.

Too many Americans who struggle with mental health illnesses

are still suffering in silence rather than seeking help.

In the state of Virginia, in the city of Charlottesville,

since 1987 the Mind & Life Institute

has been conducting rigorous scientific research

to discover the secrets of mental well-being.

The Institute works with some of the best universities in the world,

such as MIT, Emory University, Brown University,

University of Zurich and Kyoto University.

The Mind & Life is a global community

and the work that we do is with

and because of the people who make up our broader global community.

And so for all of our programs,

we engage our colleagues from different parts of the world

to help us in being sure

that what we are doing is culturally sensitive

and is in fact going to be able to have

impact into their local communities.

The research has been informed by the very first

conversation

of the Dalai Lama with Western scientists,

which was the foundation of the Mind & Life Institute

almost 34 years ago.

I started my...

My world and my work was in health care.

I started my work as a nurse

and that was caring for people with very serious illness,

primarily people with cancer

and facing the end of life,

as well as those people who have mental illness.

2007 was my first personal experience with Mind & Life

as I attended the Summer Research Institute,

and I was just a regular attendee.

Being with neuroscientists and biological scientists

and social scientists, anthropologists and Buddhist study scholars

and philosophers,

was very refreshing.

Because there wasn’t another place we could do that.

All the people you see are members of the Mind & Life Institute.

They came here from all over the world.

We went to welcome them at the airport.

And soon, you will discover why they travelled to such a remote place...

...where McLeod Ganj is.

We’re going to be all the way up.

This is lower Dharamsala here.

- Dharamsala? - Yes, so Dharamsala...

McLeod Ganj is primarily Tibetan and Sikh

and then there’s a large refugee population in the south of India.

In the south?

McLeod Ganj is a small village

located on the first slopes of the Himalaya,

in the state of Himachal Pradesh

and home to the Tibetan Government in Exile

as of the 1960s.

Most importantly, McLeod Ganj is

the official residence of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet.

India gave His Holiness a ready welcome

and other freedom-loving nations extended sympathy and support.

Many thousands of Tibetans

crossed the Himalayan barrier to the security offered by India.

In the 1950s a large part of the Tibetan population

left its homes and moved to India.

A few years later, the social movements of the 60s and 70s

pushed a growing number of Westerners to explore Asia, especially India,

giving them the chance to meet the Tibetan masters and scholars.

Impressed by their knowledge, many of the Westerners went on

to establish solid relations with them,

which still prosper today in many cities around the world.

A new chapter in human history was about to be written.

Since my childhood,

I have...

the interest about science.

Even Buddha’s own words,

we have the right to investigate.

If we find contradiction,

even Buddha’s own words,

then we have the right to reject.

So,

I developed a keen interest about modern science.

I think...

in the 70s, 60s... 70s,

I developed a desire

to discuss with modern scientists.

So then when I asked

some of my friends,

some Westerners:

“I want a serious discussion with modern scientists.”

Then some of them responded to me:

“Be careful!"

"Science is a killer

of religious faith.”

Then I immediately reflected

on Buddha’s own words of advice to us.

He mentioned: “All my followers,

"monks, scholars,

"should not accept my teaching out of faith,

"out of devotion,

"but rather thorough investigation.”

So then I start

meeting with scientists.

Mainly four fields:

cosmology,

neurobiology,

physics,

including quantum physics

and then psychology.

We learned many useful information.

In the Asian Indian tradition,

there’s a lot of knowledge about mind, about emotions,

how to tackle these emotions.

That is relevant to humanity.

So then,

a number of scientists,

they really found useful information

from our tradition,

that is Indian tradition.

To better understand this story, we have to take a step back

to 1987.

On one of my trips to Asia in 1974,

I happened to be invited to a Tibetan monastery

that was set up for Westerners,

called Kopan, in Kathmandu.

Since I’d always been interested in the meaning of life

and what we’re really doing here,

I found the teachings offering a pretty complete explanation.

Not that I believe the explanation,

but from a logical basis I thought it was very complete.

To sit down with someone from the East

like His Holiness who had a great scholarly background

and actually discuss

some topics of interest in their research...

And I knew that His Holiness from his side was very interested

in speaking with Western scientists.

So it was really to create an atmosphere of deepening of understanding.

And I have a lab where I do some experiments relating to perception,

I do some work in artificial intelligence.

Just like many people: because at some point,

I realized that my life was a total mess

and I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

Finally I run in 1974

totally by, one would say, accident in Boulder, Colorado

into a Tibetan teacher called Trungpa Rinpoche,

who was then beginning to teach in the West.

He made so much sense in terms of how to work with oneself

that I started to practice.

About 3 or 4 years down my practice, I began to realize that

behind the whole tradition of Buddhist meditation, there is also such a rich...

epistemology and theory of mind, if you want to say it that way.

There is a natural attitude that both scientists and Buddhists have.

Both of them have a strong interest in examining

if I may say so, the phenomena in front of them.

That is they like to go into details of things.

And second of all, both of them like to examine,

particularly with reference to experience

rather than relying on dogma or purely on texts.

Buddhism is more natural a partner for a conversation to Science

than any other spiritual tradition on this planet, I would submit.

In Buddhist psychology, there's a lot of explanations.

About the physical level, modern science

has much knowledge, or information.

So in the past, the scientists

simply considered the brain.

Besides the brain, nothing there.

So even scientists, some scientists, reject the existence of the mind.

Varela,

a very nice person,

he also has genuine interest about Buddhism.

He himself you see, his own personal experience,

made something, a very close connection

with scientific research work

and similarly

combined with some Buddhist...

knowledge about mind, about emotion, these things.

He really helped to develop this Institution.

Then later Richard Davidson.

He’s a specialist about the brain.

Very, very useful. Very, very useful.

His knowledge is so wonderful

and his personal...

nature, also wonderful.

Wonderful.

Since, we’ve become very trusted close friends.

This incredible journey has brought us to the University of Wisconsin-Madison

to visit Dr. Richard Davidson,

founder and chair of the Center for Healthy Minds.