Amazon.co.uk Review
Destructive Emotions and How We Can Overcome Them: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama forcefully puts to rest the misconception that the realms of science and spirituality are at odds. In this extraordinary book, Daniel Goleman presents dialogues between the Dalai Lama and a small group of eminent psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers that probe the challenging questions: Can the worlds of science and philosophy work together to recognise destructive emotions such as hatred, craving and delusion? If so, can they transform those feelings for the ultimate improvement of humanity? As the Dalai Lama explains, "With the ever-growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play in reminding us of our humanity."
The book's subject marks the eighth round in a series of ongoing meetings of the Mind Life Institute. The varied perspectives of science, philosophy and Eastern and Western thought beautifully illustrate the symbiosis among the views that are readily accessible, despite their complexity. Among the book's many strengths is its organisation, which allows readers to enjoy the entire five-day seminar or choose sections that are most relevant to their interests--such as "Cultivating Emotional Balance", "The Neuroscience of Emotion", "Encouraging Compassion", or "The Scientific Study of Consciousness". But the real joy is in gaining an insider's view of these extraordinary minds at work, especially that of the Dalai Lama, whose curiosity, Socratic questioning and humour ultimately serve as the lynchpin for the soaring intellectual discussion in the book. --Silvana Tropea, Amazon.com
Review
Few people have campaigned more vigorously for education in emotional intelligence than Daniel Goleman, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and prolific author of such bestselling works as The Meditative Mind and Working with Emotional Intelligence. This is his meticulous account of a week-long conference of the Mind and Life Institute held in March 2000. It's a Babette's Feast of a book in which centuries-old spiritual wisdom (in the shape of the Dalai Lama and two monks) sits down together with rationalist scientific research (eight international scientists). On the table before them an array of problems connected with mankind's destructive emotions. What are destructive emotions? Can we pinpoint their origins in the brain? Are they necessary? Is there a better way of handling them? The Dalai Lama's perspective differed fundamentally from that of the scientists. The Western view of anger, for example, is that it may have been a necessary evolutionary tool and is only negative if the anger is destructive to oneself or to others. The Buddhist view is that emotions become destructive the moment they disrupt the mind's equilibrium. Buddhists concentrate on eliminating destructive emotions altogether; the Western psychotherapeutic aim is to change how people respond to feelings of negativity. Are there practical ways of coping with them? Scientists tested the Buddhist claim that it's possible to train the mind to 'overcome mental afflictions'. Scanning the brain of a Tibetan monk while he was engaged in meditation, they found incontrovertible proof of clear distinctions arising from the six meditations he attempted. There were actual physical changes in the brain. This was only one of the striking examples of the concurrence of Eastern and Western experience in the emerging field of affective neuroscience. Buddhists have a specific antidote for each emotion - for hate there is love, for jealousy admiration - so they are able to deal with negative emotions as they creep into the mind. Scientific studies on the analysis of a moment in the mind have shown that what we may think of as immediacy is actually a sequence. It should therefore be possible with introspective training not to become emotional at all, to have a shorter refractory period or to have better control over how we act during the refractory period. The book is an absorbing and fascinating read as divergent strands of philosophical and scientific thought appear to dovetail into the buzzwords of the moment - 'brain plasticity'. It concludes with an overview of the productive aftermath of the conference, complete with websites to follow work in progress. (Kirkus UK)
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by Daniel Goleman
by Daniel Goleman
by Daniel Goleman
by Daniel Goleman
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