Mind Matters: Metro Meanderings To Meet the Dalai Lama

Did you know that public restrooms with fresh flowers placed in them are kept cleaner and tidier than those lacking bouquets? Patrons using the facilities actually become more attentive and caring of their surroundings. Indeed, we humans do interact with our environment. A little beauty goes a long way.

I had been pondering the findings of the above study while I attended an 11-day event in Washington, D.C., with the Dalai Lama. The intention of his program was World Peace through Inner Peace. I studied his gentle face, twinkling eyes, warm smile, and hearty laugh. Meanwhile, on my trek through the Metro, I would notice the visage of Rupert Murdoch at newspaper kiosks—thin-lipped and mean-spirited looking, the diametric opposite of the Dalai Lama’s gentle, yet authoritative, demeanor.

OK, one may not be able to tell a book by its cover, but there has been much psychological research on facial expression and body language. Paul Ekman, Ph.D., and his colleagues, have studied thousands of faces and facial expressions and have found that there is complex communication occurring constantly through our facial muscles, and, of course, through our eyes.

Paul Ekman himself visited the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. While being in the presence of His Holiness, he felt a transformation of his own chronic anger. Though the euphoria of this encounter faded, Ekman notes his reactivity was quelled.

The Dalai Lama’s message is not unlike the psychology of well-being. We do need to learn inner peace; we do need to temper our own reactivity. Becoming aware of our own judgments and reactions to ourselves and others is the step to peace in the family, peace in the nation, peace in the world. I often wonder what it would have been like for Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who was a contemporary of Freud, to have met the Dalai Lama. Jung, too, believed that the way to world harmony was for the individual to have awareness of the self and to find inner peace.

Neither Jung nor the Dalai Lama would boast a world of no conflict: Disagreements are bound to occur. Respectful dialogue is the key to resolution. And dialogue is perhaps the antidote to exploitation of others. This may have Ayn Rand rolling in her grave, but the Buddhist view is really no different than any other world religion (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Native American, and so on) that admonishes us NOT to “utilize others for oneself.” That is do not exploit others (or the earth, for that matter) for your own ends.

In fact, when we exploit others and our world, we are only destroying ourselves. The Dalai Lama reminds us:

“The fact of human interdependence is so explicit now. … the only peace it is meaningful to speak of is world peace. Destruction of your neighbors is essentially destruction of yourself. Our future depends on global well-being. We each have a role to play in this. When … we disarm ourselves internally, we create the conditions for external disarmament.”

So was my anecdote about flowers in restrooms a total non sequitor? Or is it that both flowers and the Dalai Lama’s smile lightens our hearts in a way that Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line does not?

Ponder instead the Dalai Lama’s words:

“World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not the absence of violence. Peace is the manifestation of human compassion.”

* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com or (610)388-2888. Past columns are posted towww.drgajdos.com.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.