Moral Ethics

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama was at the Mind & Its Potential Conference last week. He participated in a vigorous panel discussion with Marty Seligman, Director of the Center for Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania USA; Marc Hauser, Co-Director of the Mind, Brain and Behaviour Program, Harvard University, USA; and Alan Wallace, President of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies USA.
The question was asked, are there really any moral truths? His Holiness replied, "if based on religious faith then moral ethics becomes very narrow. But a secular moral ethics encompasses any action which brings comfort or benefit to the community and to oneself in the long-run, and which avoids discomfort or taking away benefit. That is moral. Nothing to do with religion." His Holiness also commented that "compassion is the most important emotion".