Friday, August 10, 2007

Understanding the Nature of Mind

I happily display this video and hope very much that people, particularly the Lewis family from California who I recently enjoyed to be with as we had touched upon this very subject, find the time to listen, this talk, as given to Google staff.
If happiness is an inner state, influenced by external conditions but not dependent on all of them, how can we achieve it? Ricard will examine the inner and outer factors that increase or diminish our sense of well-being, dissect the underlying mechanisms of happiness, and lead us to a way of looking at the mind itself based on his book, Happiness: A Guide to Life's Most Important Skill and from the research in neuroscience on the effect of mind-training on the brain. Although we are materially better off than ever before, surveys show that we are depressed and listless. In his revolutionary book,
Matthieu Ricard, shows that happiness is not just an emotion, but a skill that can be developed. Free of mumbo jumbo, Happiness contains 20-minute exercises to train the mind to recognise and pursue happiness by concentrating on life's fundamentals.

Speaker Bio: Matthieu Ricard, a gifted scientist turned Buddhist monk, is a best selling author, translator, and photographer. He has lived and studied in the Himalayas for the last 35 years where he currently works on humanitarian projects. He is an active participant in the current scientific research on meditation and the brain.

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