Last Updated on February 24, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org
Richard Davidson:
«From the very early I’ve been interested in one fundamental question,
which still remains with me today,
and that question is why is it,
that certain people are vulnerable,
to life’s sings and arrows,
and why are other people more resilient,
and how can we help nudge people along this,
continuum of resilience,
I am Richard Davidson and I am the founder of the center of healthy minds.
I first met his Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1992»
…
But if we listen to Richard Davidson, he is not primarily a meditation researcher. He talks about resilience in the above video. Also if we look at his papers, these are about meditation, but also about other topics sucha emotion, resilience, etc.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vP-2P9wAAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao
“Davidson is best known for his groundbreaking work studying emotion and the brain”
“His research is broadly focused on the neural bases of emotion and emotional style as well as methods to promote human flourishing, including meditation and related contemplative practices.”
https://centerhealthyminds.org/about/founder-richard-davidson
If we listen to what Richard Davidson says in Switzerland, than it is clear this is not a spiritual teacher, but a scientist who says something which will happen in the future if people will practice meditation:
But other spiritual teachers made Richard Davidson’s vision already real:
For spiritual teachers such as Thích Nhất Hạnh,Yogi Bhajan, and the Dalai Lama the 14 th, meditation started in early childhood to be a major topic in their lifes, and it stayed a major topic for the rest of their lifes. But this was not the case with Richard Davidson. And Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org
suppose this is the reason that Richard Davidson will not receive a Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work about about meditation, because it was not his goal. He did research about meditation, since the Dalai Lama the 14. th challenged him to so, as he once said, and not because it was the one and only topic he did reserach about, as it was for Nobel Prize winners, who recieved a Nobel Prize for their work. And can we therefore not learn more fom Thích Nhất Hạnh,Yogi Bhajan, and the Dalai Lama the 14 th than from Richard Davidson?
- The Nobel Peace Prize 1989 was awarded to The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) “for advocating peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people”
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1989/summary/
- Thích Nhất Hạnhn 1967 he was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, who said that “[Nhất Hạnh’s] ideas for peace would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.”
- The 14th Dalai Lama as well as Thích Nhất Hạnhn where not only spritual teachers but also peace fighters.
- Yogi Bhajan, master of Kundalini was the one which was most focused on being a spiritual teacher among these three teachers. And he was also one of the clearest teacher about meditation, as we can lean in the following example:
- https://petergamma.org/the-vision-of-richard-davidson-phd-versus-the-reality-of-yogi-bhajan-phd/
- Clearer than for instance Richard Davidson.