Darwin, the Dalai Lama and the Nature of Compassion

Dr. Paul Ekman

Date:
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Time:
7:00 pm
Doors Open:
6:30 pm
Venue:
SFU’s Segal School of Business
Address:
Room 1500 – 500 Granville St, Vancouver BC
Tickets:
$20/$15 seniors and students, plus applicable service charges available at Vancouver Tix, by phone at 604-629-8849 or in person at the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island.

Click here to visit the The Dalai Lama Center website and to learn more about this event

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 Dr Ekman’s talk is part of the Dalai Lama Center’s Speaker Series, which offers public events that focus on key areas of interest to the Center and to the Dalai Lama, including science and its relationship to spirituality, education of the heart, and the development of compassion and its contribution to the public good.

This talk will look at the connection between an evolutionary and a Buddhist view of human nature and will provide a new formulation of the nature of empathy, compassion, altruism and heroism. A long-time friend of the Dalai Lama, Dr Ekman joined the stage with His Holiness at the 2006 Vancouver Dialogues (see video below).
Dr Ekman once read to the Dalai Lama a passage from Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man that said one of humankind’s noblest virtues “seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings.” After hearing this, His Holiness told Dr Ekman, “I am a Darwinian.”
About Paul Ekman

Dr Ekman’s work in psychology has led to many international awards and publications, some of which were based on his conversations with the Dalai Lama, and he was named one of last year’s 100 most influential people by TIME Magazine.
Internationally known for his studies on the correlations between facial expressions and human emotions, Dr Ekman is also the inspiration for the television drama series Lie to Me.

The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education is a secular and non-political charitable organization based in Vancouver, Canada that educates the heart and fosters compassion through creative learning, facilitating and applying research, and connecting people and ideas. Previous Speaker Series guests included Daniel Siegel, Robert Putnam and Daniel Goleman. For more information on the DLC, visit our web site at dalailamacenter.org.