Dalai Lama funds research on compassion
The Dalai Lama recently donated $150,000 to Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at its School of Medicine. The center’s vision is “to use research advances to create tools that allow humans to become more compassionate and to engage more readily in altruistic behaviors toward themselves and others.”
In the Stanford Report, Bruce Goldman writes, that “The center has now raised more than $2 million in donations and has initiated a number of pilot studies, some involving Buddhist and Catholic contemplative practitioners. For example, brain-imaging studies have demonstrated a burst of activity in an area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens when these practitioners think compassionate thoughts. The center is also examining individuals’ response to the suffering of others, which can be either disgust or recognition of another’s suffering, followed by empathy and a desire to take action.”
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