Christmas is approaching and we are entering the phase of love, kindness and altruism. But what is altruism? Put simply, it’s the wish that other people may be happy. And, says the Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard Matthieu Ricard (right hand of Dalai Lama and happiness researcher), altruism is also a great lens for making decisions, both for the short and long term, in work and in life. In his talk, Matthieu showed us that we need more altruism not only to become more happy but to solve many (the big) problems in this world.

But: is altruism a cure for all? Can we solve big problems just being altruistic? How shall we deal with selfish people and what shall we do with terrorism? These are only a few of the questions we discussed after watching the talk.

Thubten Wangchen And in order to help us finding answers to all these questions we invited lama Thubten Wangchen, buddhist monk, founder and director of the House of Tibet in Barcelona and representative of Tibet in Spain. After watching the talk of Matthieu Ricard we discussed altogether about these and other questions. Thubten Wangchen was able to give us his point of view and experience as a buddhist monk during so many years.

The talk (19:00-19:30)
We started watching Matthieus TED talk about this subject (video in English with Spanish subtitles) which served us as a base to discuss about altruism and happiness.

The discussion (19:30-20:30)
After the talk we discussed about this subject. The discussion was moderated by our guest lama Thubten Wangchen. He helped us to understand altruism better and to find answers to the most important questions asked by the attendees.

Happy end (20:30-20:40)
We finalized the discussion singing a mantra altogether with the guidance of Thubten Wangchen. Then, we asked each and everyone to write a positive wish on the paper airplanes we distributed at the beginning of the event. Then, we sent the airplanes into the air and each of us catched a good-wish-airplane from someone else. Since we also left our email on these planes, the receiver could then answer via email and thus good-wish-conversations have been initiated.

Networking (20:30-21:30)
As always, we closed the event with a networking session in which we invited all attendees to drinks and tapas (included in the entrance price).

Give a child a toy
No child deserves Christmas without presents! That’s why our wish for this year is to give children who need it most a smile.
We therefore asked all attendees to support us in this cause, to bring a toy or a book (used or new but in good shape). Because not only ideas are worth spreading but also collective actions.

Pictures of the event:

About TEDxBarcelonaSalon
At our TEDxBarcelonaSalon events we foster networking, dialog and the discussion among all members of TEDxBarcelona. In order to achieve this we meet once a month and listen to an interesting talk. After watching the talk we discuss about the presented subject. Here the list of past Salon events.