East Meets West in Quest for Global Happiness
The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a unique facility inspired by the message of peace spread by the Dalai Lama. Teaming up with leaders at the university, the Buddhist peacemaker hopes the Center will approach the science of a healthy mind in novel ways and attempt to bring peace to areas of the world that are in great need.
Richard Davidson, a leading researcher and neuroscientist in the field of brain and emotions is working closely with the Dalai Lama on the Center’s programs that will focus on the positive aspects of psychology, namely the science behind happiness, kindness and contentment and what makes a healthy mind. The Dalai Lama’s great concerns when he first met Davidson in India eight years ago were the great emphasis of western science on the negative aspects of the mind, and why science feels the need to investigate depression, anxiety and fear so thoroughly. These questions, to which Davidson had no answers, gave birth to the concept that has become the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s new Center for Investigating Healthy Minds.
The Center will be the first in the world to study meditation’s effects on the brain, utilizing state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques that will help researchers determine why meditation has been proven to produce happiness, kindness and compassion. With an emphasis on understanding the science behind concepts like happiness and peace, the goal of the Center will be to discover ways to spread the positive effects to the population in general, and to schools, prisons and medical facilities in particular. Said Davidson in a recent press release, “By developing and offering interventions for schools, hospitals, prisons and communities, we hope to create real change for society.”
In the near future, the Center plans to embark on a training program for fifth-grade teachers on how to cultivate patience and promote cognitive relaxation in their students. The objective is to reduce impulsivity in children and yield better learning overall. The program’s effects will be monitored over the course of several years to determine if there will be long-term benefits, like a decrease in bullying behavior and other acts of aggression.