Having made the decision to become a Buddhist Monk at just 10 years old, the venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, the president and CEO of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has dedicated his life to promoting empathy and conflict resolution, and is involved in the ongoing dialogue between Buddhism, meditation, and neuroscience.

“One of the things I've found is that if you have to tell me [that you’re on the path to spiritual enlightenment], then you're not on the path, because your actions are the manifestation of being on the path.”

In this episode of Into the Magic Shop, Tenzin discusses the role we all play as teachers in one another's life, the three forms of generosity promoted in Buddhism, why we need to learn to step out of fear so that we can make better choices and better decisions, and the contrast between solitude and loneliness. 

“Solitude is a choice. It's a willful choice. Loneliness is generally an imposition. It comes from certain kinds of feeling of alienation or experiences of alienation.”

To learn more about Tenzin’s work at the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values, download and listen to this episode. 

On today’s podcast:

• How to overcome the need for validation
• The difference between judgment and discernment
• How to find light amid the darkness
• Why empathy is a public health issue