Inside Yoga 120 (5/11/14)
Back in the 1980s the Dalai Lama began working with cognitive scientists who were studying mindfulness meditation and Buddhist insights, and he welcomed this with open arms, but he probably did not imagine businesses and even the US military would one day want to harness some of those insights.
Last week, the Dalai Lama attended a conference in Boston, USA. It was the latest meeting of the Mind & Life Institute – the thriving organisation that grew from those initial discussions almost 30 years ago – about 1,700 delegates from 38 countries were in attendance.
As the Guardian reported, “Security was tight before the meeting, with an entire floor of the Marriott Hotel in lockdown. The atmosphere outside the hall was an odd mixture of tension and calm as delegates practised their morning yoga or meditation while a dozen dark-suited security personnel double-checked mindfulness researchers who set off the airport-style body scanners. The previous evening, they had been asked jokingly not to bring their guns to the meeting.”
At the conference the Dalai Lama was asked, “Are there any guiding principles that should be considered when applying mindfulness to settings such as business and the military?”
The Dalai Lama is known for being diplomatic and tactful, and at the same time sticking to his Buddhist principles. He did not tackle the question of military applications head-on, though he had earlier asserted that “mental transformation never takes place by force or fear”.
And he said the ethics of applying mindfulness in business depended entirely on the corporation in question and whether it upheld social values and made a contribution to the welfare of its community.
But in his opening remarks he had criticised the fact so many people believed money was the ultimate source of happiness.
Scientists working with the military have discovered that the amount of mindfulness practice by the soldiers was associated with decreases in self-reported stress levels, by focusing on body awareness, attention control and tolerance of present-moment experiences.
Other findings have revealed improvements in soldiers’ working memory capacity; plus, another study found that the heart rate and breathing rate of US marines who had received mindfulness training recovered significantly faster after a combat simulation.
The Dalai Lama ended the meeting with some very poignant reminders of what is important: he explained why he welcomed scientific research into mindfulness and other Buddhist practices.
He said: “When I talk about Buddhist literature, people may not listen.”
He added that they were more likely to listen to scientists, who had hard evidence at their disposal and researchers were beginning to discover that a healthy mind was essential for physical health.
“We’re not talking about heaven, god or nirvana here,” explained the Dalai Lama said, “but how to build a happier society.”
He added that the Buddha encouraged his followers not to take anything on trust but to investigate things for themselves, and in that spirit he had long since abandoned Buddhist ideas about cosmology after reading about the findings of modern astronomers.
At the end he thanked American scientists for leading the world in mindfulness research. “It’s another American invasion,” he joked. “But a positive one.”
To read more about this story go to the Guardian report, at target=”_blank”>http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/nov/03/dalai-lama-scientists-boston-international-symposium-contemplative-studies
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