Beyond Religion II
Ethics for a Whole World
Our Common Humanity
How We See Ourselves
AS A MATTER OF observation, how people treat their fellow human beings, and indeed the world around them, largely de- pends on how they conceive of themselves. We all have many different ways of seeing "who we are," and these different views influence our behavior. For instance, we may consider ourselves in terms of gender as men or women, or as followers of this or that religion, or as members of this or that race or nationality. We may think of ourselves in terms of family- as a father or a mother, for instance. We may also identify with our occupation, our level of education, or our achievements. Depending on which perspective we take, we raise different expectations of ourselves. And this in turn affects our behavior, including our treatment of other people.
Everyone has his or her own separate identity. Because of this, it is of primary importance, in any attempt to develop a genuinely universal approach to ethics, to have a clear understanding of what unites us all, namely our common humanity. We are all human, all seven [nine now] billion of us. In this respect we are all one hundred percent the same.
To begin then, let us consider what it is that actually makes us human. Well, first of all, it is our simple physical reality: this body of ours, made up of so many parts, bones, muscles, blood - so many molecules, atoms, and so on.
At the basic material level, there is no qualitative difference between the matter that makes up a human being and, for example, the matter that makes up a lump of rock. In terms of material constitution, a lump of rock and our human bodies are both ultimately made up of aggregations of minute particles. Modern science suggests that all the matter of the cosmos is being endlessly recycled. Many scientists even hold the view that the very atoms in our bodies once belonged to stars far away in time and space.
Yet it is clearly the case that a human being belongs to quite a different category of things from a lump of rock. We are born, we grow, and then we die, as do plants and all other animals. However, unlike plants, we also have conscious experience. We feel pain, and we experience pleasure. We are sentient beings, what in Tibetan we call semden.
From a scientific point of view, what defines such a living being has something to do with the ability to feel pleasure and pain, and to respond to these feelings, even if the responses are predominantly or even entirely instinctive. At the most basic level, the ability to respond to one's surroundings with conscious experience is what we can consider, in the broadest sense, "mind."
This is not the place to embark on a lengthy treatment of the vast issue of what constitutes "mind" and the ways in which the human mind is distinguished from that of other beings, so a few words will have to suffice here.
The primary ingredients of human experience, according to modern science, are the data of our senses -sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. At another level of perception are our subjective experiences of these basic sensations: whether we experience them as being pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, or some combination of these. As far as we know, we share this kind of apprehension of sensory experience as pleasurable or painful with other animals.
Clearly there is more to being human than merely responding to sensory experience. We are not like dogs or cats, for instance, which, by and large, respond to their experiences purely on instinct. We humans have evolved, over many thousands of years, a tremendous complexity, which distinguishes us from all other animals. This difference is reflected in the large size of our brains, which have a much more developed frontal cortex than the brains of other species.
Human Consciousness and Empathy
In discussing the complexity of the human mind, I am not just thinking of our intellectual or rational processes and our ability for self-reflection, but rather of the entire range of our conscious experience, which includes not just thoughts, imagination, and memory but also feelings and emotions. In fact, when I talk about "mind" or "experience" in this rather general way, I am usually thinking of the Tibetan words sem (mind) and shepa (cognition), both of which refer not just to the predominantly intellectual activities normally associated with words such as "mind" and "mental" in English and other western languages, but rather to all areas of our inner experience, including feelings and emotions which in those languages are often described as matters of the heart.
Some time ago, western scientists began to conduct neuro- scientific tests on long-term Tibetan meditators, to measure the biological effects of their contemplative practices. On one occasion, I was told, the scientists were giving a talk on their exper- iment to a group of monks at the Namgyal monastery here in Dharamsala. To demonstrate their techniques, one of the scien- rists wore on his head a white cap from which protruded a great mass of wires and electrodes. On seeing him, some of the monks burst out laughing. The scientists assumed they were laughing at the strange sight of a western scientist with wires attached to his head. But it turned out they were also laughing in surprise that the wires were only attached to the head and not to any other areas of the body. After all, if the intention was to measure qual- ities such as compassion or loving-kindness, wouldn't other parts of the body, such as the heart, be equally important? These days, we are better versed in the contemporary scientific models and are no longer so surprised by the centrality that modern science accords to the brain. And the scientists too have changed their methods somewhat: they now include measurements to detect changes in the heart.
As to what distinguishes the human mind from the minds of other beings, a few major features are immediately apparent. We humans have a strong and subtle capacity for remembering, seemingly much greater than those of many other animals, which allows us to project our thoughts into the past. We also have the ability to project our thoughts into the future. In addition, we have very powerful imaginations and a highly developed capacity for communication through symbolic language. And, perhaps most distinctively, we have the capacity for rational thought - the ability to critically evaluate and compare different outcomes in both real and imaginary situations. While other animals may possess some of these capacities to a limited degree, they do not match humans in their level of sophistication.
Alone with these characteristics, we have a further quality which is central to our identity as human beings: our instinctive capacity for empathy. Of course we are not alone in this. Some other animals exhibit behavior that seems to indicate empathy. Nonetheless, it is an essential human trait. When we see someone in pain, even a stranger on the street or a victim of natural disaster we see on television or hear about on the radio, we have an instinctive response to his or her suffering. And not only that, we also experience an instinctive urge, whether we act upon it or not, to do something about it -to help that stranger on the street, or to ease the sufferings of those we see on television.
In the same way, when we witness people triumphing over adversity, our instinctive ability to empathize with the experiences of others allows us to share their joy. I think part of the reason so many of us love to watch films, sports, and plays, to read entertaining books, and so on, is that, in addition to the thrills they bring, they give us the chance to feel others' joys and sorrows as if they were our own. We naturally enjoy empathetic experience and often seek it out in our lives. An example is the joy we take in the delight of small children - we love to see their faces light up when we smile at them, give them something, or tell them a story. In the same way, we naturally enjoy the happiness of our loved ones. Everyone prefers to see others smiling rather than frowning.
Since we are social animals - that is, since our survival and flourishing depend on being part of a group or community -our capacity for empathy has profound implications for our pursuit of happiness and well-being.
Happiness and Suffering
That we all seek a happy life is, I think, a claim which needs no justification. No one wishes for difficulties or troubles. This is something that the very constitution of our bodies confirms. Medical science increasingly suggests that a person who is happy and peaceful, free from fear and anxiety, will enjoy tangible health benefits. It is also a matter of common sense that even people afflicted by illness are much better off if they have a positive outlook. So I consider it a simple truth that this body of ours is meant for a happy life. A happy mind is a healthy mind, and a healthy mind is good for the body.
But human happiness and suffering, unlike those of other animals, are not straightforward. A dog may find happiness by eating a good meal and then going onto the veranda to lie down. While we may relate to such simple pleasures, it is clear that they are in no way sufficient for genuine human satisfaction.
The never-ending human quest for happiness and avoidance of suffering explains not only humankind's greatest achievements but also the evolution, over many millennia, of this large brain of ours. Even the very concept of religion, I think, has arisen from this quest. For in the course of life we inevitably face problems that are beyond our ability to control. To maintain hope and to keep our spirits up, therefore, we develop faith, and to support faith we turn to prayer, and prayer is a core element of religion. Similarly, I would suggest, the extraordinary human achievements in science and technological innovation over the past few centuries also stem from the urge to overcome suffering and achieve happiness.
However, although our extraordinary mental sophistication distinguishes us humans from other forms of life and drives our astonishing success as a species, this very mental complexity is, at the same time, the source of many of our most enduring difficulties and hardships. Most of the problems we face in the world today-such as armed conflict, poverty, injustice, and environmental degradation - have arisen and are maintained by complex human activity. Furthermore, our most persistent sources of inner suffering at an individual level -fear, anxiety, and stress, for example-are also closely connected to our mental complexity and our excitable imaginations.
Fundamental Equality
In our quest for happiness and the avoidance of suffering, we are all fundamentally the same, and therefore equal. This is an important point. For if we can integrate an appreciation of this fundamental human equality into our everyday outlook, I am very confident that it will be of immense benefit, not only to society at large, but also to us as individuals. For myself, whenever I meet people -whether they are presidents or beggars, whether dark or fair, short or tall, rich or poor, from this nation or that, of this faith or that - I try to relate to them simply as human beings who, like me, seek happiness and wish to avoid suffering. Adopting this perspective, I find, generates a natural feeling of closeness even with those who until that moment were complete strangers to me. Despite all our individual characteristics, no matter what education we may have or what social rank we may have inherited, and irrespective of what we may have achieved in our lives, we all seek to find happiness and to avoid suffering during this short life of ours.
For this reason, I often make the point that the factors which divide us are actually much more superficial than those we share. Despite all the characteristics that differentiate us - race, language, religion, gender, wealth, and many others - we are all equal in terms of our basic humanity. And this equality is corroborated by science. The sequencing of the human genome, for example, has shown that racial differences constitute only a tiny fraction of our genetic makeup, the vast majority of which is shared by all of us. In fact, at the genome level, the differences between individuals appear more pronounced than those between different races.
In light of these considerations, the time has come, I believe, for each one of us to start thinking and acting on the basis of an identity rooted in the phrase "we human beings."