Dialogue with the Dalai Lama - Part 3 of 3Dialogue with the Dalai Lama - Part 3 of 3
All In The Mind
His Holiness the Dalai Lama joins All in the Mind's Natasha Mitchell and leading scholars in a dialogue about science and the self. This week, founder of the field of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, and Buddhist scholar Alan Wallace consider with him what it takes to flourish...really flourish...individually and collectively.
30:07•19 Dec 2009
Flourishing Minds: Positive Psychology Meets the Dalai Lama
Episode Overview
- Positive psychology focuses on four areas: emotion, meaning, relationships and accomplishment, aiming to build what makes life worth living.
- Teaching well-being skills to teachers and embedding them in school life has been linked to lower depression and anxiety in students.
- Flourishing is presented as a better goal than simply removing mental illness, with broader benefits for health, productivity and peace.
- Buddhist perspectives distinguish short-term pleasure from genuine happiness grounded in inner qualities and ethical living.
- Focusing only on suffering or impermanence can worsen distress, so a balanced mental approach that includes positive perspectives is essential.
“"That in the year 2051, 51% of the world's population will be flourishing."”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety and emotional balance when day-to-day life feels overwhelming? This conversation from All In The Mind zooms out from illness and addiction to ask a bigger question: what does it mean to truly flourish? Host Natasha Mitchell brings together His Holiness the Dalai Lama, positive psychology founder Martin Seligman, and Buddhist scholar Alan Wallace for a rich exchange between Western science and Buddhist thought.
Seligman outlines his shift from studying misery to studying what makes life worth living, breaking positive psychology into four pillars: positive emotion, meaning, positive relationships, and accomplishment. His huge ambition? "That in the year 2051, 51% of the world's population will be flourishing." You’ll hear practical examples, like teaching these skills to all staff at Geelong Grammar and watching depression and anxiety drop across the student body.
That raises a powerful question for anyone interested in recovery: what if schools everywhere taught emotional skills and resilience as standard, right alongside literacy and numeracy? Alan Wallace then links this to Buddhist ideas of hedonic versus genuine happiness and insists there’s a foundation for any lasting well-being: ethics. He extends ethics beyond human relationships to how we treat animals, soil, air, and water, asking what kind of environmental legacy is being left for future generations.
The Dalai Lama adds a grounded warning from experience: focusing only on suffering or impermanence can fuel depression. Balance matters. As he puts it, "We have to meditate [on] positive side," or risk becoming demoralised. For anyone in recovery, or supporting others through addiction, this episode offers a different angle: rather than aiming to be simply "not ill", what might it look like to build a flourishing mind and a more compassionate society at the same time?
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