The American comedian Demetri Martin said, ‟I'd like to play a video game where you help the people who were shot in all the other games. It'd be called ‘Really Busy Hospital'.” Until recently, there was little interest in the creation of pro-social non-violent video games in which the characters interact and help each other instead of killin...

The new version of one of the world's best selling video games, Grand Theft Auto V has just been released. This game contains unprecedented violence. The player may, for example, drive on the sidewalk and run over pedestrians whose blood smears the bumper and the windshield of the four by four which he has taken possession of by force. Video ...

Recently, I was talking with a nurse, who, like most of her colleagues, is constantly confronted with the sufferings and problems of the patients she cares for. She told me that the new training for healthcare personnel, in order to avoid the infamous burnout which affects so many healthcare workers, emphases the ‟necessity of keeping an emotio...

The word empathy means an affective resonance with someone else. If you are moved by the suffering of someone, even though you make a clear distinction between yourself and that person, you suffer because she suffers. You may also feel joy when she feels joy. Researchers found that a part of their brain network associated with pain is activated...

At the end of last week, Plaidoyer pour l'altruisme (The Case for Altruism), a 920 page-book on which I have been intensely working for 5 years, came out in French (the English publication is scheduled for January 2015). Cooperation, wrote Martin Nowak, is ‟the architect of creativity throughout evolution, from cells to multicellular creature...

Representation of the epic story of King Guesar from Ling, Shechen monastery, Eastern Tibet, June 2013

   In 2005 we visited a remote area of Eastern Tibet, checking on the progress of our Karuna-Shechen projects there and looking for new ways in which to help. While visiting one of our small clinics, I happened to enter a dark kitchen with my camera. In a dark corner near the hearth, was a little girl whose smile and direct gaze completely...

Representation of the epic story of King Guesar from Ling, Shechen monastery, Eastern Tibet, June 2013 Representation (2) of the epic story of King Guesar from Ling, Shechen monastery, Eastern Tibet, June 2013

Sacred dances festival, Eastern Tibet, June 2013 People under the rain watching a sacred dances festival, Eastern Tibet, June 2013

Since 2012, the Mind and Life Institute has created a European branch, based in Zurich. An advisory committee that includes scientists, contemplatives, philosophers and advisors, has met on several occasions in Paris and Berlin. Among the various initiatives that have been launched is a major European symposium, which will take place in Berlin ...