So we humans have an extraordinary potential for goodness, but also an immense power to do harm. Any tool can be used to build or to destroy. That all depends on our motivation. Therefore, it is all the more important to foster an altruistic motivation rather than a selfish one.
人类为善的潜力没有尽头, 但为恶的能力也不可小觑。 任何工具,在人类手里都可用于行善, 也都可用于作恶。 这完全取决于我们内心的动机。 因此,心怀利他精神, 而不是自私的念头,比什么都重要。
So now we indeed are facing many challenges in our times. Those could be personal challenges. Our own mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy. There's also societal challenges: poverty in the midst of plenty, inequalities, conflict, injustice. And then there are the new challenges, which we don't expect. Ten thousand years ago, there were about five million human beings on Earth. Whatever they could do, the Earth's resilience would soon heal human activities. After the Industrial and Technological Revolutions, that's not the same anymore. We are now the major agent of impact on our Earth. We enter the Anthropocene, the era of human beings. So in a way, if we were to say we need to continue this endless growth, endless use of material resources, it's like if this man was saying -- and I heard a former head of state, I won't mention who, saying -- "Five years ago, we were at the edge of the precipice. Today we made a big step forward." So this edge is the same that has been defined by scientists as the planetary boundaries. And within those boundaries, they can carry a number of factors. We can still prosper, humanity can still prosper for 150,000 years if we keep the same stability of climate as in the Holocene for the last 10,000 years. But this depends on choosing a voluntary simplicity, growing qualitatively, not quantitatively.
当今世界我们确实面临着太多挑战。 其中有我们自身的挑战, 我们的思想可以是我们最善良的朋友, 也可以是最危险的敌人; 也有社会层面的挑战: 贫富分布不均、不平等、战乱、不公平; 还有很多尚未料到的新的挑战。 一万年前,地球上只有大概五百万人, 无论那时的人做了什么, 地球的恢复力都会让人类的影响消于无形。 自工业技术革命开始以来, 这种情况就不复存在了。 人类成为了破坏地球最主要的因素。 我们迎来了人类纪,即人类的纪元。 从某种角度来看, 如果我们持续这种无节制的发展, 持续不断地消耗资源, 我们就会像这位—— 我从一位前国家元首那听来的, 我不会说是谁——说的这样, 「五年前,我们站在悬崖边, 今天我们又跨出了一大步。」 这个悬崖边,就是科学家们定义的 「地球限度」。 在限度以内—— 这个限度是由多种因素决定的—— 我们仍然可以繁荣发展, 如果维持曾经持续了一万年的 全新纪的环境稳定性, 人类可以再发展十五万年。 但这决定于我们的选择, 要自发地求简、求质,而不是求数量。
So in 1900, as you can see, we were well within the limits of safety. Now, in 1950 came the great acceleration. Now hold your breath, not too long, to imagine what comes next. Now we have vastly overrun some of the planetary boundaries. Just to take biodiversity, at the current rate, by 2050, 30 percent of all species on Earth will have disappeared. Even if we keep their DNA in some fridge, that's not going to be reversible. So here I am sitting in front of a 7,000-meter-high, 21,000-foot glacier in Bhutan. At the Third Pole, 2,000 glaciers are melting fast, faster than the Arctic.
在二十世纪初,你们能看到, 我们还处在安全的限度以内。 到二十世纪五十年代, 社会的发展速度有了极大提升。 请屏住呼吸,快速想一下, 接下来会发生什么吧。 如今我们在很多方面大幅超出地球限度, 以生物多样性来说吧,按现有速度, 到2050年,地球上30%的物种将会消失。 即便我们冷藏其DNA,消失的物种也不能复原。 照片中的我坐在 不丹境内七千米高, 也就是两万一千英尺高的冰川前。 在第三极点,两千米高的冰川在迅速融化, 速度比北极融化的还要快。
So what can we do in that situation? Well, however complex politically, economically, scientifically the question of the environment is, it simply boils down to a question of altruism versus selfishness. I'm a Marxist of the Groucho tendency. (Laughter) Groucho Marx said, "Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?" (Laughter) Unfortunately, I heard the billionaire Steve Forbes, on Fox News, saying exactly the same thing, but seriously. He was told about the rise of the ocean, and he said, "I find it absurd to change my behavior today for something that will happen in a hundred years." So if you don't care for future generations, just go for it.
这种情况下我们能做些什么呢? 环境问题尽管充斥着政治、 经济、学术等诸多因素, 但可以归结为一点:是利他,还是利己。 我是格劳乔马克思主义者。 (笑声) 格劳乔•马克思说过, 「我为什么要为后代考虑呢? 他们为我做过什么吗?」 (笑声) 不幸的是, 我也曾听到亿万富翁史蒂夫•福布斯 在福克斯新闻这样说过, 当谈到海平面上升问题,他义正言辞地说, 「为一百年后发生的事情而改变自己今天的所作所为, 这简直是荒谬的。」 既然你不为后代着想, 就随你去吧。
So one of the main challenges of our times is to reconcile three time scales: the short term of the economy, the ups and downs of the stock market, the end-of-the-year accounts; the midterm of the quality of life -- what is the quality every moment of our life, over 10 years and 20 years? -- and the long term of the environment. When the environmentalists speak with economists, it's like a schizophrenic dialogue, completely incoherent. They don't speak the same language. Now, for the last 10 years, I went around the world meeting economists, scientists, neuroscientists, environmentalists, philosophers, thinkers in the Himalayas, all over the place. It seems to me, there's only one concept that can reconcile those three time scales. It is simply having more consideration for others. If you have more consideration for others, you will have a caring economics, where finance is at the service of society and not society at the service of finance. You will not play at the casino with the resources that people have entrusted you with. If you have more consideration for others, you will make sure that you remedy inequality, that you bring some kind of well-being within society, in education, at the workplace. Otherwise, a nation that is the most powerful and the richest but everyone is miserable, what's the point? And if you have more consideration for others, you are not going to ransack that planet that we have and at the current rate, we don't have three planets to continue that way.
当今我们面临的主要挑战是 协调三个时间维度的矛盾: 短期的经济发展问题, 如股市的涨跌,年终审计; 中期的生活质量问题—— 未来10年,20年,我们生活的质量如何? 以及长期的环境问题。 环境学家和经济学家对话听起来 就像是精神分裂患者的对话, 丝毫没有关联。 他们没有共同语言。 过去十年,我游遍世界, 与经济学家、科学家、 神经学家、环境学家、 哲学家和喜马拉雅地区的思想者对话。 我意识到,只有一个理念能协调 那三个时间维度的矛盾, 即多为他人考虑一些。 如果你能为他人多考虑一些, 我们就会拥有彼此关怀的社会, 经济发展为社会服务, 而不是社会为经济发展服务; 你就不会辜负社会对你的信任, 挥霍资源,在赌场寻欢作乐; 如果你能为他人多考虑一些, 你就会致力于消除不平等, 将善良与恩惠带给社会, 带给教育,带给工作。 否则,国家繁荣而富强, 生活却不堪入目,这样有什么意义呢? 如果你能为他人多考虑一些, 你就不会像现在这样掠取地球的资源, 没有三个地球供你挥霍。
So the question is, okay, altruism is the answer, it's not just a novel ideal, but can it be a real, pragmatic solution? And first of all, does it exist, true altruism, or are we so selfish? So some philosophers thought we were irredeemably selfish. But are we really all just like rascals? That's good news, isn't it? Many philosophers, like Hobbes, have said so. But not everyone looks like a rascal. Or is man a wolf for man? But this guy doesn't seem too bad. He's one of my friends in Tibet. He's very kind. So now, we love cooperation. There's no better joy than working together, is there? And then not only humans. Then, of course, there's the struggle for life, the survival of the fittest, social Darwinism. But in evolution, cooperation -- though competition exists, of course -- cooperation has to be much more creative to go to increased levels of complexity. We are super-cooperators and we should even go further.
问题是, 好,答案是利他思想,这并不是一个新概念, 但利他思想可以转化为真实可行的出路吗? 首先要弄明白的是,真正的利他思想存在吗? 还是我们都是自私的? 有些哲学家认为我们的自私无可救药。 但我们真的就这么像「无赖」吗? 好消息是,不是吗? 很多哲学家,如霍布斯,给出的答案是:不是。 并不是所有人都像无赖。 人对于他人就像豺狼吗? 但这个人看起来不那么坏, 他是我在西藏的好朋友, 他很和善。 我要说的是,我们热爱合作。 没什么比合作带来更多的幸福感,没错吧? 不只是人类。 当然,生活也有艰辛的一面, 适者生存,达尔文主义。 但在进化的过程中,合作 ——尽管竞争存在,没有疑问—— 合作对于生命的复杂演变发挥了更大的作用。 人类是伟大的合作者, 而且我们要进一步加强合作。
So now, on top of that, the quality of human relationships. The OECD did a survey among 10 factors, including income, everything. The first one that people said, that's the main thing for my happiness, is quality of social relationships. Not only in humans. And look at those great-grandmothers. So now, this idea that if we go deep within, we are irredeemably selfish, this is armchair science. There is not a single sociological study, psychological study, that's ever shown that. Rather, the opposite. My friend, Daniel Batson, spent a whole life putting people in the lab in very complex situations. And of course we are sometimes selfish, and some people more than others. But he found that systematically, no matter what, there's a significant number of people who do behave altruistically, no matter what. If you see someone deeply wounded, great suffering, you might just help out of empathic distress -- you can't stand it, so it's better to help than to keep on looking at that person. So we tested all that, and in the end, he said, clearly people can be altruistic. So that's good news. And even further, we should look at the banality of goodness. Now look at here. When we come out, we aren't going to say, "That's so nice. There was no fistfight while this mob was thinking about altruism." No, that's expected, isn't it? If there was a fistfight, we would speak of that for months. So the banality of goodness is something that doesn't attract your attention, but it exists.
这其中最重要的是人类彼此关系的质量。 OECD曾做过一个调查, 列举了十个因素,如收入等等。 调查显示,影响幸福感的首要因素, 是社会关系的质量。 不仅仅是人类社会关系。 再看看这些曾祖母们吧。 剖析地够深就会发现 人类是无可救药的自私, 这种说法是空穴来风, 没有任何一个社会学 或心理学研究支持这种说法。 事实是相反。 我的朋友丹尼尔•巴特森花了一生的时间 研究人们在实验室中复杂环境下的表现。 当然,我们有时是自私的, 而且有些人会比他人更自私。 但他发现,整体来看,无论如何, 有大量的人会 表现出利他的行为,无论如何。 如果你看到有人受伤很严重,非常痛苦, 你就会出于同理心而伸出救援之手—— 你无法承受其伤痛, 与其冷眼相看,不如上前救援。 种种情况都进行过试验研究, 最后,他说,人是有利他精神的 这是好消息。 而且,我们要看到善良的平凡一面。 看这儿, 当我们走出家门,我们不会说,「太好了, 当强盗也在考虑帮助他人, 就不会有暴力发生了。」 不,这很显然,不是吗? 如果真有暴力事件, 那够我们谈论几个月的了。 因此,你或许没留意到善良的平凡一面, 但它确实存在。
Now, look at this. So some psychologists said, when I tell them I run 140 humanitarian projects in the Himalayas that give me so much joy, they said, "Oh, I see, you work for the warm glow. That is not altruistic. You just feel good." You think this guy, when he jumped in front of the train, he thought, "I'm going to feel so good when this is over?" (Laughter) But that's not the end of it. They say, well, but when you interviewed him, he said, "I had no choice. I had to jump, of course." He has no choice. Automatic behavior. It's neither selfish nor altruistic. No choice? Well of course, this guy's not going to think for half an hour, "Should I give my hand? Not give my hand?" He does it. There is a choice, but it's obvious, it's immediate. And then, also, there he had a choice. (Laughter)
看这段录像, 许多心理学家说, 当我告诉他们我在喜马拉雅地区 开展的140个人道主义行动 带给我极大的幸福感时, 他们说,「我明白了,这是温情效应, 而不是利他精神, 你只是为了让自己感觉良好。」 看看他,迎着火车跳入铁轨时, 你们认为他会在想 「救了他之后我的感觉会棒极了」吗? (笑声) 故事并没有结束。 他们说,好吧,他接受采访时,说, 「我没有选择,我不得不跳下去, 当然了。」 他没有选择,自发的行为。 这不是自私也不是利他。 没有选择? 当然,他不会在那想个半小时, 「我要不要救他?不救他会怎样?」 他跳了下去,这是一个选择, 但很显然,这是瞬间的反应。 然后,没错,他确实是做了选择。 (笑声)
There are people who had choice, like Pastor André Trocmé and his wife, and the whole village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France. For the whole Second World War, they saved 3,500 Jews, gave them shelter, brought them to Switzerland, against all odds, at the risk of their lives and those of their family. So altruism does exist.
有很多人做了选择, 像 Pastor André Trocmé 和他的妻子, 还有法国的名为利尼翁河畔勒尚邦的小镇。 在二次世界大战期间, 他们救了三千五百个犹太人, 为他们提供住所,带他们去瑞士, 克服一切困难, 冒着丧生和失去整个家庭的危险。 因此,利他精神确实存在。
So what is altruism? It is the wish: May others be happy and find the cause of happiness. Now, empathy is the affective resonance or cognitive resonance that tells you, this person is joyful, this person suffers. But empathy alone is not sufficient. If you keep on being confronted with suffering, you might have empathic distress, burnout, so you need the greater sphere of loving-kindness. With Tania Singer at the Max Planck Institute of Leipzig, we showed that the brain networks for empathy and loving-kindness are different. Now, that's all well done, so we got that from evolution, from maternal care, parental love, but we need to extend that. It can be extended even to other species.
利他精神是什么呢? 是一种希望: 愿他人幸福喜乐,并找到幸福的根源。 移情作用是一种共鸣, 或称之为认知共鸣, 它会让你感受到他人的欢快, 他人的伤痛。 但只有移情是不够的。 如果周遭的不幸始终笼罩着你, 你就会感到压力,承受不住, 所以,你需要更大范围的充满关爱的善良。 来自莱比锡马普研究所的塔尼亚•辛格 与我一起发现, 从大脑构造的角度来看, 移情和充满关爱的善良是不一样的。 这是成熟的科学研究。 这些是进化而来的, 是从我们接受母爱、父爱而得到的, 但我们不能止步于此, 它还可以拓展到其他物种。
Now, if we want a more altruistic society, we need two things: individual change and societal change. So is individual change possible? Two thousand years of contemplative study said yes, it is. Now, 15 years of collaboration with neuroscience and epigenetics said yes, our brains change when you train in altruism. So I spent 120 hours in an MRI machine. This is the first time I went after two and a half hours. And then the result has been published in many scientific papers. It shows without ambiguity that there is structural change and functional change in the brain when you train the altruistic love. Just to give you an idea: this is the meditator at rest on the left, meditator in compassion meditation, you see all the activity, and then the control group at rest, nothing happened, in meditation, nothing happened. They have not been trained.
如果希望社会中有更多的利他行为, 我们需要做到两方面: 个人的改变和社会的改变。 个人的改变可能吗? 两千年的冥想研究表明,是可以改变的。 神经科学和表观遗传学 长达15年的合作也表明, 改变可以发生,当你接受利他精神的训练时, 你的大脑会发生改变。 我接受了MRI长达120小时的扫描, 这是上次两个半小时治疗后第一次接受扫描。 扫描的结果被多篇学术论文选用。 其结果清晰地表明,当你接受利他关爱的训练时, 大脑的结构和机能会发生改变。 给你们一个直观的感受: 从左到右依次是放松状态下的冥思者, 正在冥思怜悯的冥思者, 你们能看到发生了什么, 然后是对照组,放松时,什么都没发生, 冥想时,什么都没发生, 他们没接受过训练。
So do you need 50,000 hours of meditation? No, you don't. Four weeks, 20 minutes a day, of caring, mindfulness meditation already brings a structural change in the brain compared to a control group. That's only 20 minutes a day for four weeks.
你需要五万小时的冥想吗?不,不需要的。 与对照组相比,每天20分钟,持续4周的 关爱、正念冥想训练会使大脑结构发生改变。 只需每天20分钟,持续四周。
Even with preschoolers -- Richard Davidson did that in Madison. An eight-week program: gratitude, loving- kindness, cooperation, mindful breathing. You would say, "Oh, they're just preschoolers." Look after eight weeks, the pro-social behavior, that's the blue line. And then comes the ultimate scientific test, the stickers test. Before, you determine for each child who is their best friend in the class, their least favorite child, an unknown child, and the sick child, and they have to give stickers away. So before the intervention, they give most of it to their best friend. Four, five years old, 20 minutes three times a week. After the intervention, no more discrimination: the same amount of stickers to their best friend and the least favorite child. That's something we should do in all the schools in the world.
甚至幼儿园的孩子也能发生这样的改变, 理查德•戴维森在麦迪逊市做过实验。 八星期长的项目:感恩、关爱、合作与呼吸训练。 你会说,「他们只是幼儿园的孩子啊。」 八星期之后, 亲社会的行为,是这根蓝色线。 然后是终极的科学实验,贴纸测试。 在训练前,确定每个孩子在班里最好的朋友, 最不喜欢的伙伴,不认识的小孩, 还有生病的小孩, 每个孩子都要把手中的贴纸分发出去。 在训练介入之前,孩子手中的贴纸 大部分都给了最好的朋友。 四五岁的孩子,一周三次, 一次20分钟的训练。 训练之后,不再有区别对待: 孩子手中的贴纸等同地分给了 他们最好的朋友和最不喜欢的朋友。 我们需要把这个培训带给全世界的学校。
Now where do we go from there?
我们接下来要怎么做?
(Applause)
(掌声)
When the Dalai Lama heard that, he told Richard Davidson, "You go to 10 schools, 100 schools, the U.N., the whole world."
当达赖喇嘛听到了我的想法, 他告诉理查德•戴维森, 「从1个学校到10个,再到100个, 到联合国,到全世界。」
So now where do we go from there? Individual change is possible. Now do we have to wait for an altruistic gene to be in the human race? That will take 50,000 years, too much for the environment. Fortunately, there is the evolution of culture. Cultures, as specialists have shown, change faster than genes. That's the good news. Look, attitude towards war has dramatically changed over the years. So now individual change and cultural change mutually fashion each other, and yes, we can achieve a more altruistic society.
我们接下来要怎么做? 个人的变化是可能的。 我们还要等人类基因中出现利他基因吗? 这还需要五万年,环境等不了这么久。 幸运的是,文化也可以进化。 文化,正如学者们指出的, 要比基因变化快得多。 这是好消息。 你们看,相比过去, 人们对于战争的态度已发生了天翻地覆的变化。 个人的变化与文化的变化相辅相成, 没错,我们能实现利他社会。
So where do we go from there? Myself, I will go back to the East. Now we treat 100,000 patients a year in our projects. We have 25,000 kids in school, four percent overhead. Some people say, "Well, your stuff works in practice, but does it work in theory?" There's always positive deviance. So I will also go back to my hermitage to find the inner resources to better serve others.
接下来要怎么做? 我要回到东边, 目前我们的一个行动每年救助十万个患者。 我们的学校里有两万五千个孩子。 有些人说,「你所做的一切在实践中可行, 但有理论支持吗?」 总是会有些偏差, 因此我常常独自一人思索, 追寻我的内心,来更好的帮助他人。
But on the more global level, what can we do? We need three things. Enhancing cooperation: Cooperative learning in the school instead of competitive learning, Unconditional cooperation within corporations -- there can be some competition between corporations, but not within. We need sustainable harmony. I love this term. Not sustainable growth anymore. Sustainable harmony means now we will reduce inequality. In the future, we do more with less, and we continue to grow qualitatively, not quantitatively. We need caring economics. The Homo economicus cannot deal with poverty in the midst of plenty, cannot deal with the problem of the common goods of the atmosphere, of the oceans. We need a caring economics. If you say economics should be compassionate, they say, "That's not our job." But if you say they don't care, that looks bad. We need local commitment, global responsibility. We need to extend altruism to the other 1.6 million species. Sentient beings are co-citizens in this world. and we need to dare altruism.
在全球范围内,我们能做些什么? 我们需要做好三件事。 加强合作: 在学校里倡导合作式学习,而不是竞争式学习; 在企业里鼓励无条件的合作—— 企业间可以有竞争,但不是企业内部。 我们需要持续的和谐,我喜欢这个词。 不是持续的发展。 持续的和谐意味着消除不平等。 未来,我们要以少及多, 追求高质的发展,而不是高量的发展。 我们需要充满关爱的经济。 守旧的人无法解决贫富不均的问题, 无法解决公共福利的问题, 无法解决大气和海洋的问题。 我们需要充满关爱的经济。 如果你说经济应该充满关怀, 他们会说,「这不关我的事。」 你要告诉他们,如果他们不在乎, 看起来很糟。 我们不但要对周边履行承诺和责任, 还要着眼整个世界。 我们需要把利他精神 传播给其他一百六十万种生物。 我们都是一家人。 我们要敢于弘扬利他精神。
So, long live the altruistic revolution. Viva la revolución de altruismo.
愿利他精神得以恩泽天下。 愿利他精神得以恩泽天下。
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Thank you.
谢谢。
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