Dalai Lama
31 Mar 2010

The Dalai Lama: Your mind and its potential

2 mins to read
On the Dalai Lama’s recent tour of Australia, Blackmores heard His Holiness’ thoughts on how we can harness our minds to reach our potential as individuals, and as part of something much bigger.


“The wonderful human brain is the source of our strength and the source of our future, provided we utilise it in the right direction. 
Humans have the potential to not only create happy lives for themselves, but also help other beings. With the realisation of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.

According to my own experience, self-confidence is very important. That sort of confidence is not a blind one; it is an awareness of one’s own potential.

On that basis, human beings can transform themselves by increasing the good qualities and reducing the negative ones”
—The Dalai Lama

Q: What parts of our minds do we need to develop in order to improve our world?

A: Love and affection are critical for our survival… Biologically we have a smart brain. It’s intelligence that we need to call on. That lets us move beyond biology. Use your mind to treat people nicely. Our future depends on the way we use human intelligence. Caring for others improves our world.

Q: You call for an end to the huge preoccupation with the self. How do we in the West move from this state and start looking outwards?

A: Some exploit others or don’t care for anyone but the self. This is extremely egotistical. We cannot stop all murders, but we can stop to examine people’s motivations.

Submission to a higher being, and recognising that we are part of a bigger whole also lessens our self-centred outlook.

In Buddhism there’s no ‘just self’ - you’re part of a whole. When a family has spiritual caring for each other, there’s always happiness. Those who don’t, become lonely.

Q: Do you think the practise of meditation when done alone (rather than a part of a collective) has the potential of making us more self-centred?

A: Training our minds serves everyone. Believers or non-believers, even a crude person can develop a sharper mind. That makes them more holistic.

Q: Buddhism advocates training the mind to suppress negative emotions, such as fear, anger and jealousy. But do destructive emotions serve a purpose (for instance anger can lead to social justice?):

A: Be more harmonious, be more peaceful—that is our goal. We also respect non-believers. There is no difference between the two. I also don’t like the differentiation between the East and the West. There’s too much emphasis on how different we are. We’re all the same. We think the same and have the same emotions.

Fear serves us for survival. As does attachment, hatred and jealousy. But we have the ability to think about long-term survival: here these destructive emotions serve no purpose. Becoming enlightened is about dissolving ignorance.

We think of destructive thoughts being a part of our minds—just normal. When we compare Buddhist science to Western psychology, Buddhism serves a much longer goal. Modern psychology looks at the shorter term. The West deals with day-to-day problems and seeks knowledge through experiments. We need to have a greater imagination about the future. The past is finished!



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