Dialogue with the Dalai Lama: Part 1Dialogue with the Dalai Lama: Part 1
All In The Mind
From the stage of the 2009 Mind and Its Potential conference, His Holiness the Dalai Lama joins All in the Mind's Natasha Mitchell in an extended conversation about the mind, science and much else. And, joining the dialogue over coming weeks is the founder of the field of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, leading Harvard evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser, and Buddhist scholar Alan Wallace
29:28•5 Dec 2009
Dalai Lama on Mind, Emotion and the Science of Change
Episode Overview
- Buddhist psychology describes the mind as "luminous and knowing", contrasting with views that reduce it purely to brain activity.
- The Dalai Lama distinguishes between gross, brain-based mental activity and subtler levels of mind that Buddhist traditions link to reports of fresh bodies after clinical death.
- Research on long-term meditators suggests that intensive mental training can measurably change brain activity related to positive mood and gamma waves.
- Negative emotions such as anger, fear and jealousy are described as biologically useful for survival, yet potentially destructive when judged against long-term wellbeing.
- Depression is framed as a cluster of different states with different causes, suggesting that treatment needs to focus on underlying causes rather than symptoms alone.
“"Through training of mind, change our mind, transformation of our emotion. That's the way, not through some kind of blessing from outside, but within ourselves, change."”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety, and what can ancient wisdom add to modern science? This conversation between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and journalist Natasha Mitchell brings a very different angle to questions about the mind, emotion and mental health. Recorded at the 2009 Mind and Its Potential conference, the episode focuses on how Buddhist “science of mind” and modern neuroscience try to understand what the mind actually is.
The Dalai Lama reflects on learning, as a child, that the mind is “luminous and knowing”, and contrasts this with views of the mind as just neurons or a machine. He talks about subtle and gross levels of mind, including cases where a meditator’s body appears fresh for weeks after clinical death, which he sees as an important area for joint research with scientists.
You’ll also hear Buddhist scholar Alan Wallace briefly describe research by neuroscientist Richard Davidson on long‑term meditators. Their thousands of hours of practice seem linked with changes in the brain associated with positive mood and unusual gamma activity, hinting that mental training can reshape the brain over time. A big part of the chat centres on emotion.
The Dalai Lama explains why “negative” emotions like anger, fear and jealousy once helped survival, yet become harmful when we think in terms of long‑term wellbeing. He contrasts emotions rooted in ignorance with those grounded in clarity and wisdom, and suggests depression may be more like a family of symptoms than one single state, each needing its own causes addressed.
He also warns about extreme self‑centredness, sharing how both Buddhist ideas of selflessness and faith traditions that stress surrender to God can soften the ego. Meditation, he says, is simply training the mind – potentially helpful to anyone, for good or for ill, depending on their motivation. If you’re interested in how inner training, brain science and emotional health intersect, this conversation might spark some fresh questions about how you look after your own mind.
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