H. H. Dalai Lama: The Nature of the Mind

His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama: The Nature of the Mind
Nottingham, England, 24 May 2008.
Transcribed, translated in parts, and lightly edited by Alexander Berzin.

Levels of Mind

There’s the demarcation of sentient beings and non-sentient beings and, concerning sentient beings and mental activity in our daily lives, there are also different levels. When we are awake, when we dream and when we’re in deep sleep and then when we are unconscious – at each stage, there’s a deeper level of mind. Continue reading »

H. H. Dalai Lama: How to Deal with Negative Emotions

His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama: How to Deal with Negative Emotions.
Nottingham, England, 24 May 2008
Transcribed and lightly edited by Alexander Berzin.

The Definitions of “Good” and “Bad” or “Positive” and “Negative”

How do we deal with negative emotions? This is an important topic – one that brings up the question of what’s positive and what’s negative. Is there anything that’s absolutely negative or absolutely positive? I don’t really know. Everything is interdependent and everything has different aspects. Continue reading »

H.H. Dalai Lama: What is the Mind?

By His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Cambridge, MA USA

There is little agreement among Western scientists about the nature and function of mind, consciousness—or even about whether such a thing exists. Buddhism’s extensive explanations, however, stand firm after twenty-five centuries of philosophical debate and experiential validation. Here His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains the Buddhist concept of mind to the participants of a Mind Science symposium at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

One of the fundamental views in Buddhism is the principle of “dependent origination.” This states that all phenomena, both subjective experiences and external objects, come into existence in dependence upon causes and conditions; nothing comes into existence uncaused. Given this principle, it becomes crucial to understand what causality is and what types of cause there are. In Buddhist literature, two main categories of causation are mentioned:

  1. external causes in the form of physical objects and events, and

  2. internal causes such as cognitive and mental events. Continue reading »