Originally published in buenavida.com
Alan Wallace has an impressive resume: interpreter for the Dalai Lama himself, a graduate in Physics and a PhD in Religious Studies from Stanford University, a researcher and professor, author of twenty books, translator of as many Tibetan Buddhist classics, and a monk for 14 years… Without a doubt, this North American philosopher is one of the most influential intellectuals within Buddhist teachings. He visited Spain—invited by the Nirakara Institute, associated with the Complutense University—to discuss the contemplative science of the mind, a perfect opportunity to chat with him about a field in which he is a pioneer.
It seems that all roads lead to the old Greek saying: “Know thyself.”
It’s the oldest aphorism in the West. It’s perennial, and for good reason: because we need it. However, there’s no single answer. First, we come to questions like gender, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, personality, and so on. From there, we move to deeper, transpersonal levels.
You propose that we delve into dreams.
If one wishes to understand the mind and the multiple dimensions of consciousness, exploring lucid dreams is invaluable. It is also excellent preparation for understanding the process of dying when it comes.
Have we made any progress in this process of self-knowledge since ancient Greece?
The tendency, since the advent of modern science, is to focus on the external. Even psychologists don’t study their own minds, but rather those of other people through interviews, observing behaviors… We’re obsessed with what’s external; we think we should accumulate more knowledge. But we’re missing something. We know a lot about the brain, but at the same time, the number of people suffering from depression has increased tenfold. The same is happening with anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. There’s an imbalance because we haven’t grown in ethics. We’re more powerful, but if you go back to the Greek aphorism, we haven’t made much progress. The problem isn’t knowing so much about the external world, but that we know so little about the true causes of happiness and suffering. Can virtues like compassion, love, and patience be cultivated? We need a deeper understanding there.
How to cultivate these virtues? Through meditation?
People sometimes associate meditation with something esoteric, but that’s not what I understand by meditation. The Sanskrit term (bhāvana) means to cultivate. Like cultivating flowers. Meditation is nothing more or less than cultivating your mind with mindfulness, ethics, and less violence. There’s no single technique. In the broadest sense, it’s about cultivating your inner life. Knowing yourself, again.
And this is the path to happiness?
Anyone can be happy while experiencing pleasant stimuli. Now, who is capable of sitting in a room without any stimulation and being content, even happy? Many people do. They achieve this because they cultivate it. If your happiness depends on things going your way, you have no real control. Meditation helps you gain control over your own life; it teaches you to cultivate the sources of happiness and equanimity. In this way, we can enjoy a sense of well-being in good, bad, and neutral times. Understood in this way, I believe everyone should learn to meditate, including children.
Is this the antidote to the rush that’s gripping us? Life seems to be speeding up more and more.
Without a doubt. Everything is faster now. Every two years we buy a new cell phone because it’s faster. There’s nothing wrong with speed in and of itself, but we’re conditioned by the pace of life and the demand to do several things at once, by the feeling that we’re never doing enough. And the avalanche of information is such that we need to be more focused because the mind and also the body suffer. We’ve created a world in which it’s difficult to be at peace, content, without anxiety. So we have a moral obligation. Just as parents vaccinate their children against polio or the flu, we need to give children mental inoculations. We don’t need to cling to a word like meditation; we can talk about attention training, empathy… Children need to be taught to pay attention to their own mind, their body, and nature. When we’re truly paying attention, nothing and no one is boring.
The Dalai Lama is, they say, a master at treating everyone equally.
For 44 years, he has been my teacher and the most extraordinary person I have ever met. He was once asked who his peers were. And he replied, «Everyone.» He meant it. There is no difference between what he says and what he is. What he teaches, he practices every day. I remember an anecdote that happened many years ago: he was giving talks on patience in Tucson, Arizona, to an audience of thousands of people. His hotel was nearby, so he was walking to the auditorium. One day, he was returning to the hotel with his assistants to rest after giving a five-hour workshop.
Out of the corner, he noticed some hotel employees looking curiously around. And suddenly, he went out of his way to walk toward them. He stopped, greeted them, and asked their names. Nothing special, however, he treated them like the governor of the state, like an eminent scientist. The next day,
as he walked back from the auditorium to the hotel, he found 100 employees there. He reacted by greeting them all, one by one. He didn’t do it so I could tell this story. There were no press reports. The Dalai Lama treats everyone equally.
He was a Tibetan monk for 14 years. What brought him there?
I was born into a very religious family and met many very devout and virtuous Christians. Later, at university, I encountered very intelligent and erudite people. However, I didn’t find many who were both intelligent and virtuous. When I began living with Tibetans in 1971, each of my teachers impressed me because their wisdom and erudition were combined with their great humanity and kindness. The Dalai Lama is the personification of this. He’s smart and quick-witted, has great analytical intelligence and knowledge of science, philosophy, and great erudition. But he’s also very compassionate. So, when I met him, I said to myself, «This is my guru. I want to be like him.»
He is the author of the book Genuine Happiness… How would you define it? Where does it come from?
We’ve all experienced genuine happiness at some point. It has several dimensions. The first is what comes when one is at peace with oneself, with others, and with the environment. If at the end of the day or of your life you look back and think something like, «I caused little suffering, I tried to help others, I wasn’t violent, I was benevolent, I have little to regret…», a feeling of well-being arrives, and that is genuine happiness. And what I call ethics. In the second dimension, meditation comes into play. The cultivation of mindfulness, compassion, forgiveness, generosity. From this inner cultivation emerges a deeper dimension of happiness, which must also be based on ethics.
He spends a good part of the year on retreat meditating for 10 hours a day or more, something unattainable for most people.
It’s important to realize that it’s a skill worth cultivating. Not everyone needs to learn to play tennis or the piano, for example, but cultivating mindfulness is a skill that is truly important for everyone.
He is concerned about attention deficit disorder, but also what he calls “imagination deficit disorder.”
It’s a proven fact: if you’re poor, don’t have food or medical care, etc., and you reach a point where you have enough, you’re happier. Now, if you multiply your wealth tenfold, you’re not going to be ten times happier. Yet we always imagine that you are.ue sí.
So, is that thing about the more I have in life the happier I will be false?
Exactly. From the moment you have enough, having ten times more isn’t going to make you happier, and on the contrary, it can cause more anxiety. The inequality that exists in the world today is staggering. Someone paid 170 million for a Picasso painting not long ago in London. What could be done with those millions in Nepal? But someone prefers to say: «I have this Picasso and I spent 170 million on it. So, if I was able to spend this money on a painting, I must be incredible, right?» Well, no. This is an imagination deficit disorder. And it doesn’t just apply to wealth. It also applies to power.