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Most English speakers who have attended the teachings of the Dalai Lama have actually heard his wisdom through the voice of Thupten Jinpa, who has served as translator for His Holiness since 1985. A highly trained Buddhist scholar and practitioner in his own right, Jinpa's monastic training at the Shartse College of Ganden culminated in the distinguished Geshe Lharam degree. He then obtained a BA in philosophy and a Ph.D. in religious studies, both from Cambridge University. He has translated and edited more than twelve books by the Dalai Lama and written books of his own.

That human beings have an innate instinct for compassion is not something anybody needed science to prove, of course. But research is beginning to answer one vexing question: Is compassion a fixed personality trait, locked in by nature and nurture, or can higher states of compassion be cultivated? Scientific studies suggest that we can learn to be compassionate and that compassion can even physically change the wiring of our nervous systems.

"Heroes are not extraordinary people. They're ordinary people who do an extraordinary thing, step out of themselves, put their best self forward in service to humanity."

When Paige McCarthy begin planning her annual dinner party for a small group of friends, she knew she wanted to create something unique, something with lasting impact.

At the commencement ceremony for Columbia University's Teachers College on May 18, Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond—a nationally renowned leader in education reform and former education adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign—was awarded the Teachers College medal for distinguished service. Professor Darling-Hammond marked the occasion by delivering the following address

Compassion is defined as the embodiment and recognition of another person’s suffering coupled with a sincere desire to alleviate that suffering. Every one of us has suffered, is suffering or will, at some point, suffer. It has been stated many times that survival is of the fittest, but when one reads Darwin closely this is not the case.

Three decades after his infamous Stanford Prison Experiment proved that "terrifyingly normal" individuals can commit alarming atrocities, Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus in psychology, has set out to communicate the opposite: that in all situations, these same people can speak out against evil and become heroes.

The Dalai Lama returns this week on his third visit to Stanford in recent years, but it's more than palm trees and sunshine that draw him to the heart of Silicon Valley.