The Monastery and the Microscope by Wendy Hasenkamp

Author:Wendy Hasenkamp
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300231380
Publisher: Yale University Press

As the debate between Michel and Christof became increasingly heated (while remaining good-natured), Arthur drew a comparison to the educational practice of monastic debate. His Holiness and Jinpa joked that Michel and Christof should employ the stylized kind of clapping often used in these debates to make their points, and the monastic audience erupted in supportive laughter.

RICHARD DAVIDSON: I think the issue that Matthieu raised about why consciousness has evolved is an empirically tractable question. Let me give you one example. In the kind of experiment that Christof presented, where you have an angry face and it’s masked by the colored blotches, it turns out that the emotion that that angry face elicits is an emotion that you’re not conscious of.

But you attach those feelings to many things around you. If you’re presented with a neutral face (right after unconsciously seeing the angry face) and you’re asked how much you like that face, you will tend to say that you don’t like it very much, because the emotion spills over when you’re unaware of it.

When you become conscious of the emotion you can regulate it. One function of consciousness is regulation. There are good data to show that when information in the brain becomes conscious we are able to regulate that information in ways that are not possible when we’re not conscious of it.

ARTHUR ZAJONC: This raises for me a very important question about ethics, which in some ways is one of the most fundamental questions of this whole enterprise.

As exciting as it is to debate these issues, in the end it comes back to relieving suffering and promoting human flourishing. If there’s no way a human being can feel, if it feels like nothing to be a human being, then it seems to me like there are no ethical foundations for anything.

This dimension of subjective human experience is the foundation of ethics. We all know how it feels to have an emotion and then to regulate that emotion. This possibility is at the core of an ethical cycle. As human beings we empathize or feel for and with others, and then through reason or careful training or cultural support, we then have the possibility of regulating our feeling, and go on to act ethically by reducing suffering and supporting human flourishing.

Your Holiness, do you have any closing remarks?

DALAI LAMA: I really enjoy these frank discussions. Through such discussions, the picture becomes clearer and clearer. If at one point everybody agrees and says, “Oh, yes, wonderful,” then there will be no further discussion, no further investigation. I really enjoy this freedom of expression, freedom of thought, different views. It’s very good—wonderful!

ARTHUR ZAJONC: It’s also the fellowship and collegiality of being in this community. We can have strong arguments, even disagreements, but it’s on behalf of becoming more insightful, and therefore they are all of great value.

DALAI LAMA: As part of the initial training in elementary debate there is a saying that the mark of being trained in du dra,16 which

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