On Friday, May 31st His Holiness the Dalai Lama had a private audience with a group of students from Emory University on how to, “counteract negative emotions by cultivating compassion.” He first explained that destructive emotions are strong but lack a sound basis, so the best antidote is compassion, which does have a sound basis. He continued on to explain that although anger, jealousy, and fear are the most dominant emotions in our world today, we can reduce them through modern education, science, and intelligence, which in turn cultivate compassion.
His Holiness’ discussion with these students resulted in a wide array of positive responses across Facebook and Youtube, where the video was posted. Users expressed how encouraging it was to see him working with young students, aware of what profound of an impact they will have on the world. Others chose to relay their own stories of how they were able to cure their own destructive emotions in the past. The video also encouraged some constructive dialogue regarding how such lessons can be applied to real-world situations. Finally, as always, everyone showed immense appreciation for His Holiness and wished him a long and healthy life.
This expansive response on social media for a video that is shorter than two minutes continues to illustrate how far His Holiness’ reach is, and how meaningful such interactions with young students, and changemakers, continues to be.
Watch the video here:
By Kyla Sherap, Social Media Intern, DIIR