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His Holiness the Dalai visits Oxford in 2015 to launch the Dalai Lama Centre for Compassion. He engages with
the students on the importance of compassion in one’s daily lives.

emotional regulation but also the development of other I think tolerance is probably quite prominent now
skills as well, like deeper conscious awareness of others because it is a modern phenomenon that lines are
and the world around you. drawn very hard in terms of politics, culture, and
nationalism. He helps me to stay in a place of non-
At the moment, we are helping children to manage their judgement. He is able to maintain relationships even
emotional states so that they can develop personally with controversial people. For example, he always says
and academically by training them to be proactive that George Bush is his friend. His Holiness manages
rather than reactive. We want to make this a universal to find the humanity within people, even people who
programme that schools offer, so that the children from are very difficult to deal with. This is the hardest part
the age of 5 can learn these important skills which allow of compassion practice – being compassionate towards
them to move forward with life with greater awareness people you don’t like or don’t agree with, but it is really
and resilience. This is our area of focus, and the project important. If we are cutting these people out of our
is called ‘Compassion Matters’. Along with SEE Learning, world, then we are not really engaging with our world.
all the materials are free. And we are not growing in our understanding or ability
to be kind to others. That to me is hugely inspiring.
What kind of inspiration have you got from the Dalai As the nature of my work is focused on compassion,
Lama and what impact has this had on your life? he has made me think a lot every single day about