Gift of Eastern Teachings to Western Society
VIEW EVENT DETAILSEvening Presentation by Dr. Barry Kerzin, Professor, Medical Doctor and Buddhist Monk
Drinks Reception at 6.30pm
Lecture at 7pm
Close 8pm
Mindfulness meditation helps relieve stress. There is a growing body of evidence from high quality research establishing mental and physical benefits from meditation. There is a great need and indeed thirst in Western and modern society for balance, fulfillment, meaning, and mindfulness has taken off like wildfire - TIME Magazine highlighted this theme on the cover of their February 2014 edition. Many people recognize that they are stressed out and trapped in selfish lifestyles trying to find happiness through material based pleasure, but what can they really do about it? Although pleasure is not bad, it is limited. It does not bring deeper contentment or meaning into one’s life. Have we forgotten how powerful compassion is to enrich and fulfill? And is mindfulness meditation the eastern teaching that will cure the modern society?
Dr. Barry Kerzin’s work includes the health sector, providing training for mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. A major component is education, particularly in secular ethics, including honesty, integrity, forgiveness, gratitude, generosity, love, and compassion. This is primarily directed towards college students, but also is for students of all ages. The institute he founded – Altruism in Medicine Institute, and the Mind and Life Institute – infuse Western institutions and thinking with much needed wisdom from the eastern spiritual tradition.
Dr. Barry Kerzin is a professor and medical doctor. He received his BA from UC Berkeley in philosophy, and his M.D. from USC School of Medicine. He is a faculty member of the Mind and Life Institute and consults for the Max Planck Institute Leipzig’s research on training compassion. Dr. Kerzin is a fully ordained Buddhist monk. His brain was studied as part of research on long-term meditators at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Princeton University. He is the founding president of the Altruism in Medicine Institute in the U.S., and Chairman of the Human Values Institute in Japan. Dr. Kerzin spends about 7 months annually teaching around the world in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, North America, Europe, Mongolia, Ukraine, and Russia. Dr. Kerzin now comes regularly to Hong Kong as a Visiting Professor in the Centre for Buddhist Studies and the LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. He teaches mostly in universities on the interface of modern science and Buddhist psychology and philosophy, ethics, compassion, death and dying, consciousness, and Buddhist wisdom. Dr. Kerzin has delivered TEDx talks in Philadelphia and Taipei. He is the author of Tibetan Buddhist Prescription for Happiness in Japanese. It is now being translated into English and Chinese. He has written many chapters for books, and is finishing a book on Nagarjuna.