A Heart-Centered Life

with Mamphela Ramphele, Jim Doty and Rick Hanson

Join us for a transformative dialogue with renowned South African activist and global leader Mamphela Ramphele and Jim Doty, founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, moderated by GCC President Rick Hanson.

Mamphela Ramphele

Jim Doty

Rick Hanson

This event was held on Tuesday, 25th July 2023.

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Compassion has been critical to Mamphela and Jim’s life-stories – helping them overcome personal adversity and inspiring and guiding their missions to create a more compassionate world. In this conversation they will talk about:

  • Their journeys
  • Our inherent connectedness, richly expressed in the culture of Ubuntu
  • Facing one’s adversaries without contempt
  • Kindness toward yourself on the challenging road of life.

About the Speakers

Dr. Mamphela Ramphele has had a celebrated career as an activist, medical doctor, academic, businesswoman and political thought leader. Dr Ramphele was co-founder of The Black Consciousness Movement with Steve Biko that reignited the struggle for freedom in South Africa. She is co-founder of ReimagineSA , co-president of The Club of Rome and Chair at the Desmond Tutu IP Trust. She has received numerous national and international awards acknowledging her scholarship and leading role in promoting the empowerment of women, youth and other oppressed  people in South Africa and globally. Ramphele is the author of several books and publications on socio-economic issues in South Africa.

Dr. Jim Doty is a clinical professor in the department of neurosurgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, and the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, where he researches the neuroscience of compassion and altruism. He is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, now translated into 31 languages around the world. He is also an editor of The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science.

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and president of the Global Compassion Coalition.

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