A brief encounter with the Dalai Lama

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Berkeley events, Dalai Lama, Living in the Berkeley Marina, My Bell's Palsy, My dog Tiger, Paul Ekman, Strange encounters

This afternoon I began reading the Book of JOY by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams. On page 33 I read, “Paul Ekman, famed emotions researcher and longtime friend of the Dalai Lama, has written that joy is associated with feelings as varied as: pleasure, amusement, contentment, excitement, relief, wonder, ecstasy or bliss, exultation, radiant pride, unhealthy jubilation or schadenfreude, elevation, gratitude.”

That brought memories back for me of walking my dog Tiger along the Berkeley Marina and meeting the Dalai Lama walking with Paul Ekman. It was 100 yards west from where Tiger and I lived for a couple of years with nothing but a beautiful park between our boat and where those two eminent persons were walking along the San Francisco Bay. Perhaps Tiger was feeling defensive of his property when he ran over and started barking at those two intruders.

I hurried over to settle Tiger down and apologize to the professorial-looking guy and his strangely orange-robed companion. It was a bit of a problem for me because I had Bell’s Palsy, the result of a bad cold, and had trouble speaking because my mouth wasn’t forming words normally.

Unbeknownst to me at that time, the professor was the world authority on facial expressions and the orange-robed guy was the Universal authority on human kindness. They seemed willing to talk to me about my facial problem but I hurried off in embarrassment.

It was only much later that I discovered those two celebrities liked to walk and talk in the Berkeley Marina.

Things commonly happen in Berkeley that rarely happen elsewhere.

Clockwork Purple – Emotional Dalai Lama

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Clockwork purple, Dalai Lama, Emotional components, Paul Ekman

Book chosen by Ahonu – Crystal Therapy – How to Heal and Empower Your Life with Crystal Energy – by Doreen Virtue, Ph. D., and Judith Lukomski

Randomly chosen unseen page by Aingeal 50

Randomly unseen line 8 chosen by Linda

“Now that you have strong sense of the emotional components”

Alexa set timer for 47 minutes – 47 minutes starting now, 10:52 – 11:38

The current Dalai Lama and University of California-Berkeley professor of Psychology Paul Ekman were walking along the Berkeley waterfront talking about their favorite subject. People. People and their emotional relationship to this world. Ekman had just published a new book. His current book is more inclusive, Telling Lies, Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage. His previous books became the foundation of a TV series called Lie to Me, which ran for three seasons. Their discussion along the beach I later discovered was about asymmetrical facial expressions and their relationship to lying.

Unbeknownst to any of us they were walking past my residence at that time, dock 28 in the Berkeley Marina, and my dog Tiger began barking at them and ran over to them to check out their smell, as dogs typically do, and thus began my short conversation with those two men.

I could tell by their close attention to my facial expression that they had noticed my face was partially paralyzed. I immediately told them that I had had a severe cold a month before and the infection had hit my trigeminal nerve and paralyzed it. The technical medical term for that condition is Bell’s palsy. They both were familiar with the condition so the discussion progressed quickly to what we were all interested in,  the observation of asymmetrical facial expressions and their relationship to truth and emotions.

I was telling these strangers about the problems I was having with my friends because of my Bell’s palsy. It happened when I would tell a little joke about some foible of my friends. They would call it sarcasm, but I thought of it as humor at the minor expense of my friends, or sometimes of me, but because of the Bell’s palsy my face would take on weird expressions. My friends were accustomed to my sarcasms and were fairly tolerant of them, but they would see this new and bizarre expression and would be subtly freaked out. We all laughed a bit and went our separate ways.

This happened in the Berkeley Marina and now that you have strong sense of the emotional components of that conversation you can see why I value –

My conversation with the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman, which was brief but memorable for me.

Emotional Awareness: by Paul Ekman & Dalai Lama – review lecture

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Berkeley lectures, Dalai Lama, emotions, happiness, Paul Ekman

The lecture by Paul Ekman at the University of California, Berkeley tonight at the North Gate Library was packed with about 300 university people to overflowing, and hanging in the windows.

Dalai Lama & Paul Ekman

The beginning of the lecture was made up of long audio recorded quote sessions between the two men which gives a real feeling for the deep yet pleasant tone of their conversations. This lecture was being videotaped and I will link it here when it becomes available. After the audio session Paul opened the floor to questions from the audience, and there were many good ones. He made quite a few, about six, references to Charles Darwin, and his statements supported Paul’s belief that the potential for expressing almost all emotions is hardwired.

I didn’t ask any questions because what I wanted to ask would have required some discussion of my theory of how humans evolved for the last hundred thousand years under the guidance of artificial selection controlled by speaking women. That question would have been too complex. There were other questions based on Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals which he did delve into a bit. The answers to the questions about Kristen Monroe’s book The Heart of Altruism were developed at length which seemed to be linked to his Taxonomy of Empathy which had several sub-headings, Emotion Recognition, Resonance, Compassion, Global Compassion and Heroic Compassion. This was a hierarchy of empathy, a scale in which one must have them in the order presented. He discussed each level and gave simple examples. The highest level, heroic compassion, is expressed by very few people. The book probably goes into these things. He graciously signed our copy, and I thanked him for making all of our lives better.

Before the lecture, at the reception, I got to talk to Dr. Ekman briefly, and mentioned to him how reading his book Emotions Revealed was so painful for me that I had to put it down. He replied that this one is much more enjoyable. I mentioned to him the movie 21 Grams where my favorite actress Naomi Watts expressed anger to a degree which I have never seen, and that he might value her expressions.

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