Dalai Lama Thinks New Project Can Create Peace in the World

By Gary Nguyen --
11 May 2016 --

Can the Dalai Lama’s Atlas of Emotions app help achieve inner peace and end war?

Tenzin Gyatso, the present Dalai Lama, is very serious about world peace. In fact, he is $750,000 serious about world peace. That is the amount he paid Dr. Paul Ekman, an American psychologist, to develop an online interactive system, that the 7 billion people in this world could use to achieve inner peace, and thus pave the way to achieve world peace.

Dalai Lama Thinks New Project Can Create Peace in the World[/tweetthis]

The project titled Atlas of Emotions was launched last Friday. Upon visiting the interactive website, the system would present you with five continents, each representing one specific emotion, fear, anger, enjoyment, sadness, and disgust. You have the option to select one. Let's say you select fear. The system would then present you with information regarding fear. For example, the different states of fear. It includes terror, horror, panic, desperation, nervousness, and so on. The different actions that we succumb to as a result of fear. It includes worrying, screaming/yelling, hesitating, avoiding, freezing, and so on. The different triggers of fear. It includes thunder, sudden loss of gravity, snake-like shapes, and so on.

According to Dalai Lama, the more humans are able to get in touch with their emotions, the more inner peace they would be able to achieve. By nature or biologically, human beings have both constructive and destructive emotions. Paying close attention to one's innerness from a very young age itself, humans would not only be able to gain knowledge but also be able to achieve happiness. A happy human being provides for a happy family, happy community, and happy humanity.

In an interview given to The New York Times, Dalai Lama said that when humans become self-aware about their emotions, it could have a ripple effect on the society.

The Dalai Lama has teamed up with renowned psychologist Dr. Paul Ekman to build an “Atlas of Emotions” that aims to…https://t.co/BJS6vZrOFB
— Adam Heaton (@InovateWithAdam) May 10, 2016

If the Atlas of Emotions reminds you of a certain Hollywood movie, then you’re are most definitely right. The five emotions projected in the Atlas of Emotions are the same five emotions that are anthropomorphized in the movie, Inside Out, a Disney-Pixar film. Dr. Paul Ekman has been one of the professional consultants that the producers of the movie contracted with.

Dr. Ekman settled on the five emotions after conducting a survey that included about 149 scientists. He contracted Stamen, a professional cartography and data visualization firm, to depict the emotions in such a way as to make it interesting and fun for the people using the system. According to Eric Rodenbeck, the founder of Stamen, Atlas of Emotions has been the most challenging project for the company, since it had to be developed around wisdom and knowledge, rather than data.

Dalai Lama is hoping that the Atlas of Emotions would be a tool for cultivating goodness in the world.