Dalai Lama's Mind and Life Science Meetings Scientific American Jul 91

Mind and life meetings grew out of the Dalai Lama's developing interest in psychology and neuroscience. The first was held in India, followed two years; later, in 1989, by a second in California. A third convened last November in Dharamsala. 'There was a gulf in terms of belief, but it never stood in the way of good feeling and communication,' recalls Larry R. Squire, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego, who presented research on memory and amnesia at the 1989 meeting. 'It would be fair to say we did not make headway on what I wowd call the fundamental issues,' including what mind is and what the brain does, Squire says, but he adds that Tibetan Buddhism 'is another source of hypotheses that you could test. One doesn't just dismiss a system of belief that has been developed over thousands of years.' The Dalai Lama says that the Tibetan concept of mind is indeed a difficult one for some Westerners. To Tibetans, mind is not the brain. Instead certain states of mind are separable from the body. 'On this particular point it is very difficult. Scientists are so far quite neutral," the Dalai Lama says good-naturedly, arranging the folds of his robe over his shoulder. In contrast, he adds,- some scientists are attracted to other aspects of Tibetan thought: the absence of a divine god and of a permanent, unchanging soul.

In simple terms, Tibetan Buddhism holds that nothing exists intrinsically unto itself but rather that an phenomena physical and mental- are dependently related events arising from causes, explains Wallace of Stanford. Consciousness, or mind, is regarded as a continuum, arising from previous consciousness. Tibetans apply this principle to birth and death, which gives rise to the belief in reincarnation, Wallace says.

Despite tenets such as reincarnation, the Dalai Lama says Tibetans and scientists have a lot in common. 'The basic Buddhist attitude is that you should investigate and analyze," he describes, holding his left hand still while the right weaves over and under it, a gesture reminiscent of Tibetan debates in which monks accompany their arguments by clapping the right hand against the left. In Tibetan Buddhism, ideas - usually philosophical in nature - become clear or convincing through logic or through experience, 'so the scientist's attitude and the Buddhist's attitude at that level are, I think, very similar,' the Dalai Lama explains.

So far the Dalai Lama says he has learned nothing from the West that challenges Tibetan Buddhist doctrines. 'On the contrary, we find scientific knowledge and findings very helpful,' he observes. Some of these ideas come from the realms of quantum physics and cosmology. In Tibetan Buddhism, for example, the role of the observer cannot be separated from the observed: an idea central to quantum mechanics, notes Wallace, who studied physics at Amherst College. With regard to cosmology, an ancient Buddhist text depicts the universe as an oscillating one, describing expansion and collapse

in a manner that recalls some versions of the big bang theory, according to Wallace.

Some scientists who have met with the Dalai Lama feel cautious as well as intrigued. "The minute you say you the Dalai Lama, your colleagues me worried about you,' comments Allan Hobson, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, who attended the Mind and Life meeting. "I'm t implying that he wants to create groupies," Hobson adds, but "he may have mastered the art of unconscious proselytizing."

Hobson, whose own work centers on dreaming, was interested in the Tibetan view of dreaming as a second, lucid level of consciousness that some monks claim they can manipulate. But he said that there is "a strong need for the rigorous testing of some of those ideas." Hobson wants to study dream states in Tibetan monks but says so far he has not received clear guidance on how to proceed with such investigations. 'It should be useful to talk about the study of consciousness. Now the question is: Where's the beef?" The beef may be forthcoming. With the Dalai Lama's blessing, some scientists have put together a research network and have started to design studies to conduct in India, says Clifford Saron, a graduate student in neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. At the most recent mind and life session, Saron filled in for Richard J. Davidson, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, presenting research on emotions and brain laterality. Saron, Varela and their colleagues are among the scientists who would like to conduct studies measuring the electrical activity in the brains of Tibetan monks to detemine the effects of advanced meditation on brain function. Researchers also plan to examine why Tibetan torture victims reportedly do not exhibit post-traumatic stress, a psychological disorder characterized by nightmares and anxiety that has afflicted Vietnam veterans, among others. And since the immune system has been clearly linked in the West to the central nervous system and to emotional states, Tibetan practices could perhaps illuminate some cognitive mechariisms important to health, Saron says. Such research may be difficult. It entails lugging heavy equipment to the other side of the globe, through India and up the winding road that encircles the lush, steep mountain on which Dharamsala is built.