0:00:00.742,0:00:07.963
So we humans have an extraordinary[br]potential for goodness,

0:00:07.963,0:00:12.363
but also an immense power to do harm.

0:00:12.363,0:00:18.029
Any tool can be used to build[br]or to destroy.

0:00:18.036,0:00:21.217
That all depends on our motivation.

0:00:21.217,0:00:24.664
Therefore, it is all the more important

0:00:24.664,0:00:28.938
to foster an altruistic motivation[br]rather than a selfish one.

0:00:30.508,0:00:37.008
So now we indeed are facing [br]many challenges in our times.

0:00:37.008,0:00:40.325
Those could be personal challenges.

0:00:40.325,0:00:44.911
Our own mind can be our best friend[br]or our worst enemy.

0:00:46.341,0:00:49.225
There's also societal challenges:

0:00:49.225,0:00:54.924
poverty in the midst of plenty,[br]inequalities, conflict, injustice.

0:00:54.924,0:00:59.120
And then there are the new challenges,[br]which we don't expect.

0:00:59.120,0:01:03.763
Ten thousand years ago, there were[br]about five million human beings on Earth.

0:01:03.763,0:01:05.373
Whatever they could do,

0:01:05.373,0:01:10.559
the Earth's resilience [br]would soon heal human activities.

0:01:10.559,0:01:13.775
After the Industrial[br]and Technological Revolutions,

0:01:13.775,0:01:16.008
that's not the same anymore.

0:01:16.008,0:01:20.073
We are now the major agent[br]of impact on our Earth.

0:01:20.073,0:01:24.977
We enter the Anthropocene,[br]the era of human beings.

0:01:24.977,0:01:31.970
So in a way, if we were to say[br]we need to continue this endless growth,

0:01:31.970,0:01:35.616
endless use of material resources,

0:01:35.616,0:01:38.514
it's like if this man was saying --

0:01:38.514,0:01:43.386
and I heard a former head of state,[br]I won't mention who, saying --

0:01:43.386,0:01:47.395
"Five years ago, we were at[br]the edge of the precipice.

0:01:47.395,0:01:49.972
Today we made a big step forward."

0:01:50.587,0:01:56.590
So this edge is the same[br]that has been defined by scientists

0:01:56.590,0:01:59.244
as the planetary boundaries.

0:01:59.244,0:02:03.705
And within those boundaries,[br]they can carry a number of factors.

0:02:03.705,0:02:09.231
We can still prosper, humanity can still[br]prosper for 150,000 years

0:02:09.231,0:02:12.563
if we keep the same stability of climate

0:02:12.563,0:02:15.721
as in the Holocene[br]for the last 10,000 years.

0:02:15.721,0:02:21.479
But this depends on choosing[br]a voluntary simplicity,

0:02:21.479,0:02:24.160
growing qualitatively, not quantitatively.

0:02:24.160,0:02:30.394
So in 1900, as you can see,[br]we were well within the limits of safety.

0:02:30.394,0:02:35.793
Now, in 1950 came the great acceleration.

0:02:35.793,0:02:40.762
Now hold your breath, not too long,[br]to imagine what comes next.

0:02:40.762,0:02:46.907
Now we have vastly overrun[br]some of the planetary boundaries.

0:02:46.907,0:02:50.866
Just to take biodiversity, [br]at the current rate,

0:02:50.866,0:02:57.288
by 2050, 30 percent of all species [br]on Earth will have disappeared.

0:02:57.288,0:03:03.085
Even if we keep their DNA in some fridge,[br]that's not going to be reversible.

0:03:03.085,0:03:04.936
So here I am sitting

0:03:04.936,0:03:10.836
in front of a 7,000-meter-high, [br]21,000-foot glacier in Bhutan.

0:03:10.836,0:03:17.987
At the Third Pole, 2,000 glaciers[br]are melting fast, faster than the Arctic.

0:03:17.987,0:03:20.994
So what can we do in that situation?

0:03:22.144,0:03:29.453
Well, however complex[br]politically, economically, scientifically

0:03:29.453,0:03:31.851
the question of the environment is,

0:03:31.851,0:03:38.678
it simply boils down to a question[br]of altruism versus selfishness.

0:03:38.678,0:03:42.287
I'm a Marxist of the Groucho tendency.

0:03:42.287,0:03:43.712
(Laughter)

0:03:43.712,0:03:47.121
Groucho Marx said, "Why should I care[br]about future generations?

0:03:47.121,0:03:49.151
What have they ever done for me?"

0:03:49.151,0:03:50.647
(Laughter)

0:03:50.647,0:03:55.430
Unfortunately, I heard[br]the billionaire Steve Forbes,

0:03:55.430,0:03:58.958
on Fox News, saying exactly [br]the same thing, but seriously.

0:03:58.958,0:04:01.293
He was told about the rise of the ocean,

0:04:01.293,0:04:04.640
and he said, "I find it absurd[br]to change my behavior today

0:04:04.640,0:04:07.695
for something that will happen [br]in a hundred years."

0:04:07.695,0:04:10.593
So if you don't care[br]for future generations,

0:04:10.593,0:04:13.494
just go for it.

0:04:13.494,0:04:16.420
So one of the main challenges of our times

0:04:16.420,0:04:19.538
is to reconcile three time scales:

0:04:19.538,0:04:21.683
the short term of the economy,

0:04:21.683,0:04:25.915
the ups and downs of the stock market,[br]the end-of-the-year accounts;

0:04:25.915,0:04:28.621
the midterm of the quality of life --

0:04:28.621,0:04:33.945
what is the quality every moment of our [br]life, over 10 years and 20 years? --

0:04:33.945,0:04:37.554
and the long term of the environment.

0:04:37.554,0:04:39.903
When the environmentalists[br]speak with economists,

0:04:39.903,0:04:42.982
it's like a schizophrenic dialogue,[br]completely incoherent.

0:04:42.982,0:04:45.814
They don't speak the same language.

0:04:45.814,0:04:49.354
Now, for the last 10 years,[br]I went around the world

0:04:49.354,0:04:53.452
meeting economists, scientists,[br]neuroscientists, environmentalists,

0:04:53.452,0:04:57.912
philosophers, thinkers [br]in the Himalayas, all over the place.

0:04:57.912,0:05:01.834
It seems to me, there's only one concept

0:05:01.834,0:05:04.794
that can reconcile[br]those three time scales.

0:05:04.794,0:05:09.198
It is simply having more[br]consideration for others.

0:05:09.198,0:05:14.099
If you have more consideration for others,[br]you will have a caring economics,

0:05:14.099,0:05:17.051
where finance is at the service of society

0:05:17.051,0:05:20.319
and not society at the service of finance.

0:05:20.319,0:05:22.187
You will not play at the casino

0:05:22.187,0:05:25.073
with the resources that people[br]have entrusted you with.

0:05:25.073,0:05:27.919
If you have more consideration for others,

0:05:27.919,0:05:31.396
you will make sure[br]that you remedy inequality,

0:05:31.396,0:05:35.136
that you bring some kind [br]of well-being within society,

0:05:35.136,0:05:37.176
in education, at the workplace.

0:05:37.176,0:05:40.599
Otherwise, a nation that is[br]the most powerful and the richest

0:05:40.599,0:05:43.686
but everyone is miserable,[br]what's the point?

0:05:43.686,0:05:45.973
And if you have more[br]consideration for others,

0:05:45.973,0:05:49.369
you are not going to ransack[br]that planet that we have

0:05:49.369,0:05:53.703
and at the current rate, we don't[br]have three planets to continue that way.

0:05:53.703,0:05:56.056
So the question is,

0:05:56.056,0:06:00.387
okay, altruism is the answer,[br]it's not just a novel ideal,

0:06:00.387,0:06:03.611
but can it be a real, pragmatic solution?

0:06:03.611,0:06:06.469
And first of all, does it exist,

0:06:06.469,0:06:10.213
true altruism, or are we so selfish?

0:06:10.213,0:06:15.553
So some philosophers thought[br]we were irredeemably selfish.

0:06:15.553,0:06:20.765
But are we really all just like rascals?

0:06:20.765,0:06:23.579
That's good news, isn't it?

0:06:23.579,0:06:26.108
Many philosophers, [br]like Hobbes, have said so.

0:06:26.108,0:06:29.429
But not everyone looks like a rascal.

0:06:29.429,0:06:32.262
Or is man a wolf for man?

0:06:32.262,0:06:35.150
But this guy doesn't seem too bad.

0:06:35.150,0:06:38.073
He's one of my friends in Tibet.

0:06:38.073,0:06:40.312
He's very kind.

0:06:40.312,0:06:43.937
So now, we love cooperation.

0:06:43.937,0:06:48.275
There's no better joy [br]than working together, is there?

0:06:48.275,0:06:52.350
And then not only humans.

0:06:52.350,0:06:54.837
Then, of course, there's[br]the struggle for life,

0:06:54.837,0:06:59.178
the survival of the fittest,[br]social Darwinism.

0:06:59.178,0:07:05.015
But in evolution, cooperation --[br]though competition exists, of course --

0:07:05.015,0:07:10.732
cooperation has to be much more creative[br]to go to increased levels of complexity.

0:07:10.732,0:07:15.414
We are super-cooperators [br]and we should even go further.

0:07:15.414,0:07:21.443
So now, on top of that,[br]the quality of human relationships.

0:07:21.443,0:07:25.925
The OECD did a survey among 10 factors,[br]including income, everything.

0:07:25.925,0:07:29.268
The first one that people said,[br]that's the main thing for my happiness,

0:07:29.268,0:07:32.621
is quality of social relationships.

0:07:32.621,0:07:35.498
Not only in humans.

0:07:35.498,0:07:38.844
And look at those great-grandmothers.

0:07:38.846,0:07:44.000
So now, this idea [br]that if we go deep within,

0:07:44.000,0:07:46.570
we are irredeemably selfish,

0:07:46.570,0:07:49.224
this is armchair science.

0:07:49.224,0:07:51.491
There is not a single sociological study,

0:07:51.491,0:07:54.737
psychological study,[br]that's ever shown that.

0:07:54.737,0:07:56.697
Rather, the opposite.

0:07:56.697,0:08:00.355
My friend, Daniel Batson, [br]spent a whole life

0:08:00.355,0:08:03.118
putting people in the lab[br]in very complex situations.

0:08:03.118,0:08:07.487
And of course we are sometimes selfish,[br]and some people more than others.

0:08:07.487,0:08:10.149
But he found that systematically,[br]no matter what,

0:08:10.149,0:08:13.149
there's a significant number of people

0:08:13.149,0:08:16.504
who do behave altruistically,[br]no matter what.

0:08:16.504,0:08:19.696
If you see someone[br]deeply wounded, great suffering,

0:08:19.696,0:08:22.318
you might just help[br]out of empathic distress --

0:08:22.318,0:08:26.468
you can't stand it, so it's better to help[br]than to keep on looking at that person.

0:08:26.468,0:08:32.344
So we tested all that, and in the end, [br]he said, clearly people can be altruistic.

0:08:32.344,0:08:34.284
So that's good news.

0:08:34.284,0:08:39.896
And even further, we should look[br]at the banality of goodness.

0:08:39.896,0:08:41.600
Now look at here.

0:08:41.600,0:08:44.370
When we come out, we aren't [br]going to say, "That's so nice.

0:08:44.370,0:08:48.937
There was no fistfight while this mob [br]was thinking about altruism."

0:08:48.937,0:08:51.099
No, that's expected, isn't it?

0:08:51.099,0:08:54.278
If there was a fistfight,[br]we would speak of that for months.

0:08:54.278,0:08:57.949
So the banality of goodness is something[br]that doesn't attract your attention,

0:08:57.949,0:08:59.437
but it exists.

0:08:59.437,0:09:04.913
Now, look at this.

0:09:09.253,0:09:12.054
So some psychologists said,

0:09:12.054,0:09:15.291
when I tell them I run 140 humanitarian [br]projects in the Himalayas

0:09:15.291,0:09:17.545
that give me so much joy,

0:09:17.545,0:09:20.799
they said, "Oh, I see,[br]you work for the warm glow.

0:09:20.799,0:09:23.703
That is not altruistic.[br]You just feel good."

0:09:23.703,0:09:26.991
You think this guy,[br]when he jumped in front of the train,

0:09:26.991,0:09:29.277
he thought, "I'm going to feel[br]so good when this is over?"

0:09:29.277,0:09:31.563
(Laughter)

0:09:31.563,0:09:33.849
But that's not the end of it.

0:09:33.849,0:09:36.391
They say, well, but when[br]you interviewed him, he said,

0:09:36.391,0:09:39.526
"I had no choice.[br]I had to jump, of course."

0:09:39.526,0:09:43.407
He has no choice. Automatic behavior.[br]It's neither selfish nor altruistic.

0:09:43.407,0:09:44.882
No choice?

0:09:44.882,0:09:47.844
Well of course, this guy's[br]not going to think for half an hour,

0:09:47.844,0:09:49.881
"Should I give my hand? Not give my hand?"

0:09:49.881,0:09:53.676
He does it. There is a choice,[br]but it's obvious, it's immediate.

0:09:53.676,0:09:56.037
And then, also, there he had a choice.

0:09:56.037,0:09:58.738
(Laughter)

0:09:58.738,0:10:02.500
There are people who had choice,[br]like Pastor André Trocmé and his wife,

0:10:02.500,0:10:05.187
and the whole village[br]of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France.

0:10:05.187,0:10:09.135
For the whole Second World War,[br]they saved 3,500 Jews,

0:10:09.135,0:10:11.792
gave them shelter,[br]brought them to Switzerland,

0:10:11.792,0:10:15.237
against all odds, at the risk[br]of their lives and those of their family.

0:10:15.237,0:10:17.394
So altruism does exist.

0:10:17.394,0:10:19.119
So what is altruism?

0:10:19.119,0:10:23.021
It is the wish: May others be happy[br]and find the cause of happiness.

0:10:23.021,0:10:28.266
Now, empathy is the affective resonance[br]or cognitive resonance that tells you,

0:10:28.266,0:10:30.977
this person is joyful,[br]this person suffers.

0:10:30.977,0:10:34.463
But empathy alone is not sufficient.

0:10:34.463,0:10:36.686
If you keep on being[br]confronted with suffering,

0:10:36.686,0:10:39.447
you might have empathic distress, burnout,

0:10:39.447,0:10:43.507
so you need the greater sphere[br]of loving-kindness.

0:10:43.507,0:10:46.234
With Tania Singer at the Max Planck [br]Institute of Leipzig,

0:10:46.234,0:10:52.335
we showed that the brain networks for[br]empathy and loving-kindness are different.

0:10:52.335,0:10:54.416
Now, that's all well done,

0:10:54.416,0:10:59.790
so we got that from evolution,[br]from maternal care, parental love,

0:10:59.790,0:11:01.625
but we need to extend that.

0:11:01.625,0:11:04.968
It can be extended even to other species.

0:11:04.968,0:11:09.375
Now, if we want a more altruistic society,[br]we need two things:

0:11:09.375,0:11:12.592
individual change and societal change.

0:11:12.592,0:11:15.150
So is individual change possible?

0:11:15.150,0:11:18.349
Two thousand years[br]of contemplative study said yes, it is.

0:11:18.349,0:11:21.951
Now, 15 years of collaboration[br]with neuroscience and epigenetics

0:11:21.951,0:11:26.435
said yes, our brains change[br]when you train in altruism.

0:11:26.435,0:11:30.707
So I spent 120 hours in an MRI machine.

0:11:30.707,0:11:33.493
This is the first time I went[br]after two and a half hours.

0:11:33.493,0:11:37.167
And then the result has been published[br]in many scientific papers.

0:11:37.167,0:11:40.749
It shows without ambiguity[br]that there is structural change

0:11:40.749,0:11:44.502
and functional change in the brain[br]when you train the altruistic love.

0:11:44.502,0:11:46.252
Just to give you an idea:

0:11:46.252,0:11:49.073
this is the meditator at rest on the left,

0:11:49.073,0:11:52.776
meditator in compassion meditation,[br]you see all the activity,

0:11:52.776,0:11:55.330
and then the control group at rest,[br]nothing happened,

0:11:55.330,0:11:57.272
in meditation, nothing happened.

0:11:57.272,0:11:59.250
They have not been trained.

0:11:59.250,0:12:03.671
So do you need 50,000 hours [br]of meditation? No, you don't.

0:12:03.671,0:12:07.837
Four weeks, 20 minutes a day,[br]of caring, mindfulness meditation

0:12:07.838,0:12:14.141
already brings a structural change[br]in the brain compared to a control group.

0:12:14.141,0:12:17.879
That's only 20 minutes a day[br]for four weeks.

0:12:17.879,0:12:21.217
Even with preschoolers --[br]Richard Davidson did that in Madison.

0:12:21.217,0:12:27.627
An eight-week program: gratitude, loving-[br]kindness, cooperation, mindful breathing.

0:12:27.627,0:12:29.882
You would say, [br]"Oh, they're just preschoolers."

0:12:29.882,0:12:31.508
Look after eight weeks,

0:12:31.508,0:12:33.958
the pro-social behavior,[br]that's the blue line.

0:12:33.958,0:12:39.402
And then comes the ultimate[br]scientific test, the stickers test.

0:12:39.402,0:12:43.350
Before, you determine for each child[br]who is their best friend in the class,

0:12:43.350,0:12:47.425
their least favorite child,[br]an unknown child, and the sick child,

0:12:47.425,0:12:50.129
and they have to give stickers away.

0:12:50.129,0:12:54.181
So before the intervention,[br]they give most of it to their best friend.

0:12:54.181,0:12:57.640
Four, five years old, [br]20 minutes three times a week.

0:12:57.640,0:13:01.123
After the intervention,[br]no more discrimination:

0:13:01.123,0:13:05.048
the same amount of stickers to their [br]best friend and the least favorite child.

0:13:05.048,0:13:08.436
That's something we should do[br]in all the schools in the world.

0:13:08.436,0:13:10.430
Now where do we go from there?

0:13:10.430,0:13:14.678
(Applause)

0:13:14.678,0:13:17.359
When the Dalai Lama heard that,[br]he told Richard Davidson,

0:13:17.359,0:13:20.815
"You go to 10 schools, 100 schools,[br]the U.N., the whole world."

0:13:20.815,0:13:22.499
So now where do we go from there?

0:13:22.499,0:13:24.762
Individual change is possible.

0:13:24.762,0:13:29.378
Now do we have to wait for an altruistic [br]gene to be in the human race?

0:13:29.378,0:13:33.132
That will take 50,000 years,[br]too much for the environment.

0:13:33.132,0:13:37.567
Fortunately, there is[br]the evolution of culture.

0:13:37.567,0:13:43.301
Cultures, as specialists have shown,[br]change faster than genes.

0:13:43.301,0:13:44.829
That's the good news.

0:13:44.829,0:13:48.189
Look, attitude towards war[br]has dramatically changed over the years.

0:13:48.189,0:13:53.370
So now individual change and cultural [br]change mutually fashion each other,

0:13:53.370,0:13:56.146
and yes, we can achieve[br]a more altruistic society.

0:13:56.146,0:13:57.888
So where do we go from there?

0:13:57.888,0:14:00.137
Myself, I will go back to the East.

0:14:00.137,0:14:03.597
Now we treat 100,000 patients[br]a year in our projects.

0:14:03.597,0:14:07.346
We have 25,000 kids in school,[br]four percent overhead.

0:14:07.346,0:14:09.921
Some people say, "Well,[br]your stuff works in practice,

0:14:09.921,0:14:11.945
but does it work in theory?"

0:14:11.945,0:14:15.287
There's always positive deviance.

0:14:15.287,0:14:17.706
So I will also go back to my hermitage

0:14:17.706,0:14:20.995
to find the inner resources[br]to better serve others.

0:14:20.995,0:14:24.182
But on the more global level,[br]what can we do?

0:14:24.182,0:14:25.973
We need three things.

0:14:25.973,0:14:28.325
Enhancing cooperation:

0:14:28.325,0:14:32.041
Cooperative learning in the school[br]instead of competitive learning,

0:14:32.041,0:14:35.612
Unconditional cooperation[br]within corporations --

0:14:35.612,0:14:40.019
there can be some competition[br]between corporations, but not within.

0:14:40.019,0:14:43.971
We need sustainable harmony.[br]I love this term.

0:14:43.971,0:14:45.914
Not sustainable growth anymore.

0:14:45.914,0:14:49.500
Sustainable harmony means now[br]we will reduce inequality.

0:14:49.500,0:14:53.826
In the future, we do more with less,

0:14:53.826,0:14:58.310
and we continue to grow qualitatively,[br]not quantitatively.

0:14:58.310,0:15:00.615
We need caring economics.

0:15:00.615,0:15:06.446
The Homo economicus cannot deal[br]with poverty in the midst of plenty,

0:15:06.446,0:15:08.798
cannot deal with the problem[br]of the common goods

0:15:08.798,0:15:11.096
of the atmosphere, of the oceans.

0:15:11.096,0:15:12.679
We need a caring economics.

0:15:12.679,0:15:14.788
If you say economics[br]should be compassionate,

0:15:14.788,0:15:16.273
they say, "That's not our job."

0:15:16.273,0:15:19.588
But if you say they don't care,[br]that looks bad.

0:15:19.588,0:15:22.967
We need local commitment,[br]global responsibility.

0:15:22.967,0:15:28.307
We need to extend altruism[br]to the other 1.6 million species.

0:15:28.307,0:15:31.732
Sentient beings [br]are co-citizens in this world.

0:15:31.732,0:15:34.724
and we need to dare altruism.

0:15:34.724,0:15:38.605
So, long live the altruistic revolution.

0:15:38.605,0:15:43.155
Viva la revolución de altruismo.

0:15:43.155,0:15:48.515
(Applause)

0:15:48.515,0:15:50.496
Thank you.

0:15:50.496,0:15:52.448
(Applause)