During the weekend of April 22–23, 2006, the Dalai Lama and I sat down for the first of three dialogues, which were to total 39 hours of intimate exchange over a period of 15 months. In the following dialogue, adapted from our book Emotional Awareness, the Dalai Lama and I explore the nature and prospects of global compassion. To the Dalai Lama’s right sat my ally in this endeavor, Thupten Jinpa, who served as the translator for the meeting.
THE LIMITS OF COMPASSION
EKMAN: The problem of our time, of our century, is to achieve a global compassion; otherwise we run the risk that we will destroy ourselves. We are talking about influencing all the people in the world, who are, to a large extent, brought up in exactly the opposite way, with a national—or even worse, a tribal—concern and nothing beyond that. We are not starting on neutral territory; we start with a need to counter tribal-bound compassion. How do we do this? What are the first steps?
DALAI LAMA: (Translated.) The first step is to be able to educate people to see the downside of a completely individualistic rather than a global concern, to recognize the pros and cons, the benefits and the disadvantages, of compassion for all living beings. (Switching to English.) Here, the narrow-mindedness to think of one’s own nation, one’s own country, one’s own tract. Or only the West—America and Europe—not thinking about Africa, Latin America, Middle East, or Asia. And the Asians say, “Oh, we’re Asia” there is a sense of rivalry with the West. So, what is the benefit of that? For us to think globally is a positive benefit: the economy, the environment, and also the political system. I think with politics, there is, how do you say?
JINPA: Rivalry.
DALAI LAMA: Rivalry, based on the national feeling, policy commitments, and concern about power. (Translated.) The first step is to appreciate really and deeply the pros and cons, the benefits and the disadvantages of narrow-mindedness, nationalism, tribalism, provincialism, whatever it is, as opposed to a global consciousness, a unity of humanity. How do we do this on a global scale? Here it becomes very important to reflect deeply upon the interconnected nature of the modern economy, and how environmentally our fates are all intertwined.
This reality, I think, is totally different from the reality of the nineteenth century, eighteenth century, seventeenth century. At that time, the Western nations had more advanced technology than other people, and so they exploited some other countries. The reality was “we” and “them”—this was the basis. Today, the reality is much different. Everything is heavily interdependent.
EKMAN: So it would appear that the world has been changing in the last century to better fit a Buddhist view. In the sixteenth century, the Buddhists had the same view as they do today, but the world did not fit it. You could live your life without much regard for how other people on the planet were living their lives. Now it is a fact of life that what one person does has effects on others; we are all interdependent.
DALAI LAMA: A new reality. (Translated.) But the problem is that the politicians are not able to follow that trend. No.
EKMAN: I see what you are pointing to. There are two destructive forces to contend with.
One of them is historically grounded resentment. In areas like the Balkans, the hatred goes back for centuries; it is living your life now in terms of what happened to your father or your uncle. But facing realities today is not so easy to achieve. Much is based on equalizing the score for past resentments. Resentment—a long-term, harbored sense of injustice and unfairness—is a real obstacle.
Another obstacle is a concern with the short term rather than the long term. Politicians generally are only concerned with what happens in the short term, because that is what is going to affect them.
DALAI LAMA: Yes. (Translated.) On a global level, we need to have a deeper appreciation of how many of the conflicts and problems that we face today are really the consequence of an inadequate appreciation of the global dimension, and that this is the result of narrow-mindedness, of one form or another.
More than a century ago, Darwin had already pointed out the need for this kind of global sentiment. [Earlier in their conversation, Ekman had described Darwin’s views on the origin of compassion, which were remarkably similar to the Buddhist view.—Ed.] Even on the individual level, it may be helpful to bring to people’s attention the health dimensions of the more positive emotions, like compassion. How thinking more globally, thinking about others, provides an outlook within which the individual may no longer get caught up in the petty issues and problems that often become stumbling blocks.
To give an analogy, there is an admonition in the Buddhist texts to appreciate that basic existence itself is subject to personal dissatisfaction. This natural “unsatisfactoriness” is a fundamental condition of existence. This is like global awareness. When you have a better appreciation of global awareness, then, with relation to specific instances of pain (whether it is physical pain or emotional pain), you have a greater ability to deal with it. Whereas if your understanding of suffering is confined to a specific instance of the pain in the present, if you keep thinking about it and thinking about it, it could actually make you feel hopeless and helpless.
EKMAN: Yes. There is always some dissatisfaction with the nature of life. It is fundamental to life. It is not all honey and sweetness; there is difficulty.
CULTIVATING COMPASSION
EKMAN: Should the effort to generate global compassion be focused on an antidote to narrow-mindedness or on an intervention to bring about more compassion? To get one, you do have to get rid of the other.
DALAI LAMA: (Translated.) My approach is to bring light, powerfully, onto the downside of narrow-mindedness, which then provides a powerful rationale for having a more broad-minded, global perspective and concern for others. So they are related, a kind of a premise. (Claps hands together.)
In Buddhist meditation practice in order to practice compassion, first you reflect deeply upon the downside of narrow-minded self-centeredness. Then you reflect upon the positive consequences and the potential of more other-centered perspectives. On the basis of these reflections, you cultivate compassion. Otherwise, if you simply admonish others to cultivate compassion, and if you do not give them the resources—particularly the rationale for its need—it is just wishful thinking. Whereas, if you explain from the point of view of self-interest—it is for your own interest and well-being; it is essential—it makes a difference.
There are two kinds of self interest. (Switching to English.) Without self-interest, generally speaking, there is no basis for development of determination. But extreme self-centeredness is foolish, selfish interest.
EKMAN: If we put two advertisements in the newspaper, one stating that we are holding a weekend workshop, free of charge, to develop compassion and the other that we are going to have a weekend workshop, free of charge, to reduce your narrow-mindedness, I think the compassion advertisement would draw more people than the narrow-mindedness ad. Coming to a narrow-mindedness workshop requires you to acknowledge that you are narrow-minded, which most people would be reluctant to do.