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In schools in North America and several countries internationally that have adopted the program, a mother and child visit the class once a month throughout the school year. The students form their own relationships with the mother and infant, noting their own emotions while observing the mother’s care for her child.

even more striking, is his commitment to logic, analysis, objectivity, and evidence

His logic begins with a simple but powerful comparison of the world today with previous times, how a world that is more complex, interdependent, and dangerous requires us to care for all humanity.

this is not stated as a moral dictum but as a practical requirement of our survival

“No one [in political leadership] takes the emotional level seriously,” he told the conference. “They just look at actions. But negative actions come out of motivations, and out of negative emotions. We have to look at the emotional level.”

The Dalai Lama points to two ways in which such universal, unbiased compassion can be developed and nurtured: through education and the cultural environment.

“This is the key thing: how to bring about a more peaceful, more harmonious society. It is like our body’s immune system: once you have a strong immune system, some small disturbances here or there won’t affect you much. But when your immune system is weak, the slightest violence creates a lot of problems. Similarly, in a society with a more compassionate culture, some disagreement, some violence here and there, may take place, but the whole society is basically strong and healthy. Creating that healthy society is everybody’s responsibility.

Mary Gordon, the creator of Roots of Empathy, speaks

“Empathy and compassion are caught, they’re not taught. You catch them by being the direct recipient or by watching and imitating.”

What is a problem is the deeper anger that remains for days, weeks, months, years, and then eventually both sides feel hatred toward the other.

“The agent for the learning, for building social and emotional understanding and compassion,” Gordon told me, “is the baby, and the baby’s relationship to the mother. That’s why we don’t work with just the baby. It’s the power of that very first loving relationship in life that nurtures us into humanity.”

He is offering practical guidance to society, not mystical revelations or realizations.

Biologically, compassion is the basis of our lives; it is not created by religion or education, but by nature.

“How do we change?” he asked. “It’s not through prayer. Throughout the centuries we have prayed, but I think the results have been limited. Maybe in individual cases it has had some effect, giving people some peace of mind, but for the whole society or the whole planet, the effect is very limited. Prayer is very limited, and the effect of meditation also is very limited.”

It was ironic that the robed monk from the exotic Asian land emphasized the intellect, while the Western Ph.D.s and education experts at the conference spoke in the “softer” language of emotions. Yet both approaches—brain to love, love to brain—represent a kind of mindfulness.

What we’ve found is that when children get a social and emotional learning curriculum, they improve their ability to stop and delay, not to be caught up in their impulses, to have more control over their reasoning abilities,” SEL researcher Mark Greenberg told the Dalai Lama. “That change explains why they reduce aggressive behavior and why they suffer less depression.

We’ve found that the brain changes that take place are very similar to the changes that Dr. Richard Davidson has shown occur when adults have mindfulness training.”

Greenberg outlined for His Holiness the SEL curriculum called PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies).

ive central goals (awareness of their own and other’s emotions; the ability to put emotions into words; the ability to calm oneself when emotionally aroused; the ability to plan ahead and consider consequences; and greater compassion and empathy)

One of the faults of anger is that when you lose your temper, then the part of your brain where you can judge right and wrong, where you judge short-term and long-term consequences, will not function properly. Because the normal function of our brain does not work properly, anger is always self-defeating.”

the program can begin as early as the third grade

“Anger is part of our nature,” the Dalai Lama told the students. “In order to survive we need two elements emotionally: one to attract things that are favorable to our survival and another to repel obstacles. Anger is supposed to repel obstacles, but in reality there are no absolutes. If obstacles were something permanent or absolute, then maybe it would be right to repel them. And if there were things that were permanently, absolutely positive, maybe attachment would be OK.

But that’s not the reality,” he explained. “Today’s obstacles may become favorable or positive factors in the future. Today’s enemy may in the future be your best friend. Things that are obstacles in one way may not be obstacles in another way. Generally our tendency is that when we confront situations, whether they are obstructive or positive, we tend to relate to them as if they were absolute and completely determined in themselves, and on the basis of that we react in a very disproportionate way, either through attachment or anger. The reality is that these are not absolutes, so our mental responses should also be like that.”

If anything, he said, what we need is a larger sense of self.

“The self is the center of our whole universe; that is reality. The problem is that my interest, my future with this physical body, depends on the other. So the whole planet should be considered part of yourself. It is the basis of your future.”

“If you don’t have the natural wish to be freed from your own suffering, you won’t be able to empathize with others’ experience of suffering. Therefore, the basis is compassion for oneself.”