STANFORD, Calif. – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled leader and the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, will participate in a Nov. 5 symposium sponsored by the Stanford University School of Medicine at which religious and scientific experts will explore how the mind works.
The daylong program, “Craving, suffering and choice: Spiritual and scientific explorations of human experience,” will take place at Memorial Auditorium. In addition to the Dalai Lama, participants include Buddhist scholars and scientists from Stanford and other universities. The conference aims to establish a productive dialog between the groups to promote a thorough understanding of the brain and how this awareness can be used to alleviate human suffering.
Because craving, suffering and choice are principal aspects of Buddhism and neuroscience, conference participants will seek to identify the common ground between the methodologies used by the two disciplines. The Buddhists, with their 2,500-year-old tradition of introspective inquiry into the nature of the mind, are thought to have much to offer to neuroscience; Western research tools and techniques also may help Buddhists test their insights and better understand the mental states they achieve through meditation.
The symposium takes place from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The day will be divided into a morning session on craving and choice, and an afternoon session on suffering and choice. For more details on the schedule and the discussants, please view the web site: http://dalailama.stanford.edu/events/medschool.html.
The event is part of the Dalai Lama’s two-day visit to Stanford; on Nov. 4, he will give a talk about aspects of spirituality and will lead a guided meditation. Later that day, he will discuss nonviolence with the Rev. Scotty McLennan, Stanford’s dean for religious life.
All public appearances by the Dalai Lama will be broadcast live on the Web site http://dalailama.stanford.edu. Additionally, Stanford will make available still photographs and video of events
MEDIA CONTACT: Ruthann Richter at (650) 725-8047 (richter1@stanford.edu)
