Dalai Lama's conference to focus on compassion meditation

He resisted the idea until two years ago, when a fellow Emory University student invited him to a class.

"I’ve been going pretty much every Wednesday for the past two years now,” the 21-year-old business major said the other day. “It’s very empowering.”

But can simply tuning out the world on a regular basis make you healthier, happier and calmer?

While adherents of compassion meditation such as Pelberg have been saying so for years, science seems to be just now catching up to the idea.

In fact, much of what scientists know about the practice for cultivating compassion will be discussed during a conference with the Dalai Lama on Monday at Emory.

The Tibetan Buddhist leader will headline the gathering of scientists and educators who will discuss the state of research on empathy and compassion, the scientific study of meditation practices and the implementation of such programs in clinical and educational settings.

The conference, “Compassion Meditation: Mapping Current Research and Charting Future Directions,” is expected to draw some 3,000 people from around the world, including Pelberg.

“This is a really rare opportunity for leading scientists and others to have an informed discussion about the benefits of compassionate training on our physical, social and emotional well being,” said Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, director of the Emory-Tibet Partnership and senior lecturer in the department of religion at the university. “Scientists from the leading research centers will share this information with his holiness and have very fruitful conversations about how to understand and implement this practice in our personal lives as well as integrate it in our educational and health systems.”

As its name suggests, compassion meditation is designed to cultivate compassion or enhance one’s ability to empathize with the suffering of others, Negi said.

Although there are many steps to cultivating greater compassion, Negi said that "one of the ways is to really pay attention to our own attitudes toward others and recognize our common humanity."

“The second important step is developing a greater sense of gratitude toward others,” he said. “The way to teach that is to simply encourage others to recognize how we benefit from the kindness of others.”

Indeed, studies show the technique not only helps relieve stress but improves people’s behavioral responses to it.

One study divided 61 healthy college students into a compassion meditation group and a control group. At the study's conclusion, both groups were given a stress test.

For students in the meditation group, there was a strong relationship between the time spent practicing and the reduction in stress.

“What we found was that in the kids in the compassion group, the more they practiced, the less upset they got,” said Dr. Charles Raison, an associate professor of psychiatry at Emory. “The other finding was their body responded to stressors in a more positive way.”

Pelberg said that when he started practicing compassion meditation two years ago, moving to a place where his mind wasn’t constantly flooded with thoughts was probably the hardest thing he had ever done.

He also struggled, he said, with seeing beyond what other people were experiencing to observe their humanity.

To his delight, Pelberg said he discovered that meditation “is a constant check of yourself, taking stock and realizing we’re more alike than different.”

Brooke Dodson-Lavelle, a doctoral student, was introduced to meditation 15 years ago. But it wasn’t until she began practicing compassion meditation that she was able to let go of the anger and resentment she felt toward people.

“I didn’t realize a huge part of my own stress came from that,” she said.

Now, she said: “I’m easy to get along with. I don’t hold on to things as long as I used to. I feel happier.”

“People think when someone harms you, being angry is their punishment," Dodson-Lavelle said. "But that anger doesn’t really hurt the other person; it hurts you."