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I was just an alienated young man in the 60s, that came up through that era of youth rebellion
and found my way into a federally funded sabbatical for 14 years [laughter];
but during that time I found myself in a world of tremendous suffering.
I was at federal prison hospital where people were dying,
this was in the middle of the AIDS crisis, all kinds of suffering;
it was also a mental health facility, just terrible suffering.
And the influence of my background caused me to want to do something to be of help.
So got involved in the hospice work, and also in trying to make meditation,
which I had already been trained in, available to others.
And so started corresponding with prisoners in other institutions
and realized that was a very limited thing I could accomplish from my prison cell.
Managed to get an organization started and today has become a movement
that's involving really tens of thousands.
I think we all know we are largely driven by habit, all of us; we’re habit driven creatures;
and if we don't become aware of that and take ownership for our own brains,
our own psychology, our own nervous system
and learn how to become more emotionally intelligent, more mindful,
then we’re pretty much just going to be driven by whatever conditioning that we got,
given our circumstances and our upbringing
So mindfulness gives us the tools to step back and see that conditioning;
own it, embrace it and make changes in it or at least not be driven by it.
And literally if we want to be more peaceful human beings,
we need more peaceful minds and we need more peaceful brains.
And neuroscience today is showing us very clearly various kinds of mind training
can build up those sectors and neural networks in the brain that support the strength,
that Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche talked about, that resilience and strength that underlies peace,
and that decreases the strength of our fear-based neural networks and
allows us to actually become more peaceful human beings.