AAAS: Darwin the Buddhist
Ordinarily, Paul Ekman is to be found doing rigorous, detailed studies of facial expression, body movement, emotion and deception. And his results are not just academic. These days he is an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, but he and his associates still give courses on how to recognize concealed emotions via subtle changes in facial expressions, body language and such--with a roster of students that include police and national security officials, corporate negotiators and health professionals. He's also the scientific adviser to the FoxTV series Lie to Me.
Not surprisingly, given his interests, Ekman is very familiar with Charles Darwin's 1872 book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. And a few years ago, he found himself discussing Darwin's views on one particular emotion, compassion, with the Dalai Lama.
"Darwin said that!?" Ekman remembers the Dalai Lama exclaiming at one point.
Further discussions--which eventually resulted in a book coauthored by the two men, Emotional Awareness (2008) -- revealed that Darwin's ideas were virtually identical to Buddhist teachings on the subject. For example, Darwin believed that the seeds for compassion lie in the mother-infant bond. ("Focus on the 'other' as 'mother'," says the Dalai Lama.) Darwn likewise believed that compassion is reinforced by the fact that when I see you suffer, it makes me suffer. ("In helping you, I help myself more," says the Dalai Lama.) And Darwin wrote that the highest moral value is to be concerned for the welfare of all sentient beings--a phrasing that matches almost word for word the teachings in Buddhist texts, translations of which were available in England at the time.
Perhaps the convergence of ideas was a coincidence, says Ekman. But in his AAAS talk, he listed eight possible ways that Darwin might have known about Buddhist teachings, and been influenced by them. These include contacts via his wife, various friends, and the aforementioned texts. "It's like a historical detective story," says Ekman.
