Science & Buddhism – Talking to Strangers

On September 29 our monthly Science & Buddhism Discussion will be based on material gathered from Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, “Talking to Strangers - What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know.” Our discussion will be led by Jikoji’s Jennifer Setsuho Hohman.

“Something is very wrong," Gladwell argues, "with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know”. What are the mistakes we make with strangers? We will discuss things like default to truth, transparency and coupling in relationship to behaviors coupled to a particular context. 

The book covers some controversial real life examples and we will discuss how we get past assumptions we make that aren’t even accurate. We'll also consider how we use our Buddhist practice to make our interactions with strangers less about our assumptions and more about the living human being in front of us? Wellness goes deep into the truth of a stranger’s real life experience and we should learn something from that even if we can’t apply it everyday.