For Dalai Lama at MIT, mind is what matters

Meditation meets science, and they aim for a match

By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff, 9/14/2003

CAMBRIDGE -- MIT's Kresge Auditorium looked more like a TV talk show set than a scientific conference, with speakers seated in soft armchairs around low coffee tables yesterday, and buckets of bright sunflowers decorating the stage.

But the most unusual aspect of the groundbreaking "Investigating the Mind" conference was the presence of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who huddled gamely over a laptop computer with world-renowned scientists in a five-hour conversation about Buddhism and the study of the mind.

B. Alan Wallace, a Buddhist scholar speaking onstage at the conference, called the two disciplines "a match waiting to be made" and suggested scientists could use minds trained by meditation to study mental phenomena the same way a high-powered telescope allows "stable, vivid observation of stars and planets."

Staged before a sellout crowd of 1,200, the living-room ambiance of the conference was similar to private meetings between Buddhists and scientists hosted by the Dalai Lama in India in recent years -- minus the tea and cookie breaks, one panelist said. Co-sponsored by MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Mind and Life Institute, and carefully balanced to allow equal input from both sides, the event featured scientists asking detailed questions about the Buddhists' practice of meditation, and probing for valuable lessons about how the mind focuses attention and processes mental images.

Dressed in a cherry-colored robe and relying on an interpreter, the Dalai Lama responded to several inquiries by the scientists. Gesturing steadily with his hands, he described visualization, as practiced by Buddhists, as a kind of thought process, and noted that "you don't have to close your eyes" to focus on an internal image.

"Even the subtlest states of consciousness must have some physical base," he said through his interpreter, Tibetan scholar Thupten Jinpa; he further described Buddhist beliefs as being "in a way very similar to the basic scientific standpoint, that the brain is the basis for all events."

During the afternoon session, Harvard University psychologist Stephen Kosslyn sprung a pop quiz on the Dalai Lama, posing a series of questions designed to show how the mind uses visualization. "I hope this isn't too personal a question," Kosslyn said, before asking the Nobel Peace Prize winner -- who is actually the 14th Dalai Lama, believed to be the latest reincarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion -- how many windows are in his bedroom. (He said he couldn't remember.)

Asked in which hand New York's Statue of Liberty holds her torch, the Dalai Lama raised one arm, then the other, imitating the statue's famous pose, and winning laughter from the crowd, before answering correctly. (It's the right arm.)

Kosslyn said the dialogue reminded him "how narrowly focused" scientists have been and how much they still have to learn about other ways of thinking.

"Hopefully, we're beginning to build a brick that will contribute to a wall," he said.

Some observers came mainly to share a room with the Dalai Lama and said they were rewarded. "There was a lot of wisdom that seemed to cut through the jargon, and that was refreshing," said Evyan Streitfeld of Boston, who works at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Stephanie Rude, a University of Texas psychologist who traveled to Cambridge from Austin, pointed out the limitations of a two-day conference to mesh centuries of separate study.

"It's just a few words said, and there are whole bodies of literature behind every word," she said. "It's almost like a tease."

Inside the auditorium, scientists asked monks for advice about what kind of research they should be doing -- and wondered aloud what benefit their experiments could have for Buddhists. "You don't need our pretty pictures to decide what kind of life to live," said Nancy Kanwisher, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT.

Ajahn Amaro, the co-abbot of Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in California, urged research showing the medical benefits of living ethically, suggesting such findings could influence people's behavior.

"What I get out of it is a healthier world, because people believe in the great god of data," he said.