Photo:https://www.richardjdavidson.com
“Why can’t you use the same tools of neuroscience to study kindness and compassion that you use to study anxiety and depression?” The question posed by His Holiness disrupted and restructured Dr Davidson’s* life’s work. “And I did not have a very good answer for him”, he admits. Yet Dr Davidson made a commitment to His Holiness to help bring qualities like kindness and compassion into the crosshairs of science. “Everything goes back to that one day in Dharamshala in 1992. I’m dedicated to doing this work for the reminder of my time. I just feel that very deeply in my bones this is why I’m here”, he says.
Dr Davidson and fellow neuroscientists think of themselves as activist scientists, similar to climate activists. “The data right now in climate science are sufficiently clear to begin to act upon it. And in the same way, we believe that the data that shows that well-being can actually be learnt is incontrovertible”, he explains. Given that, the Healthy Minds Innovations has as its mission to take the insights from both the Tibetan tradition and modern science, and translate them into tools that can be used to cultivate and measure well-being. To Dr Davidson, this mission has been his moral obligation since His Holiness challenged him in the 1990s.
Photo:https://www.richardjdavidson.com
“Part of well-being is not only being kind to others, but it’s being kind and respectful of our environment”, he says. The pathways go both ways, “We know that being in nature, being in green space and in blue space, being by water is beneficial for our well-being […] His Holiness always tells us that there’s seven billion people on the Planet and 80% of them identify as being a member of a religious faith. In fact”, he continues, “there are climate scientists who say that they’ve become climate scientists because of their faith, because of their belief that God created the Earth and the Planet to be nurtured, and respected, and cared for.” Dr Davidson brings faith leaders and indigenous leaders into the conversation on ecology and educates them with science, hence the Loka Initiative** which has been successfully changing the mindset of many religious leaders and helping them to embrace this issue of climate change.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, people have become even more accustomed to online means of communicating, enabling the dissemination of well-being through digital means. Dr Davidson’s Healthy Minds Innovations has released the Healthy Minds Programme, the first comprehensive evidence-based programme to practise well-being. By visiting the website tryhealthyminds.org, one can learn more about the App, which anyone can download, anywhere in the world. The programme offers a combination of podcast-style lessons and both seated and active meditations. Undoubtedly, Dr Davidson has kept the promise to His Holiness that he would develop a secular form of nourishing well-being that anyone would feel comfortable engaging with.
Dr Davidson’s ambitions don’t stop accelerating. The Healthy Minds Innovations is rolling out the programme in Spanish and Mandarin (in addition to the global English version), and it is expected that the App will be available in many other languages in the future. “I also envision launching within the next few years a large-scale global citizen-science experiment, where participants from all over the world will be recruited using our App, to both learn practices to cultivate well-being, as well as monitor their well-being and their health”, he explained, saying that the aspiration is to see that well-being skills and qualities of the mind are practised in the same way that physical exercise is practised today.
Please see the article His Holiness in Lockdown which mentions the Mind and Life Institute and His Holiness’s connection with it.
Please see also this article from three years ago:
https://www.contactmagazine.net/news-from-other-site/neuroscientist-richie-davidson-says-dalai-lama-gave-him-a-total-wake-up-call-that-changed-his-research-forever/
*Dr Davidson is the Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the founder of the Center for Healthy Minds and of the Healthy Minds Innovations, and the Mind & Life Chief Scientific Advisor. The Mind and Life Institute works to bring science and contemplative wisdom together to better understand the mind and create positive change in the world; His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been closely involved with it since its inception in 1987.
** The Loka Initiative is an education and outreach platform for faith leaders and religious institutions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their mission is to support faith-led environmental and climate efforts locally and around the world by helping build capacity of faith leaders and culture keepers of indigenous traditions, and by creating new opportunities for projects, partnerships and public outreach.
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