The scientist and the monk

I met for the first time Giacomo Rizzolatti, internationally renowned scientist discoverer of Mirror Neurons, during a Congress of Psychosomatic Medicine in 2011 in which I had given my contribution as a "Positive Provoker" to experiment with the participants the contagious mechanism that Mirror Neurons they are capable of unleashing.

As many of you know, in fact, mirror neurons are activated both when an individual performs an action and when the same individual observes the same action performed by another subject. It has been scientifically proven that this is valid for both physical movements and emotions. In this way, learning processes and empathy are facilitated.

I have had other occasions over time to meet Professor Rizzolatti and I have always appreciated in him, among other things, the extreme clarity and linearity of his exposition. Genius and simplicity almost always go hand in hand. I recently participated in a conference on EMPATHY in which Giacomo Rizzolatti and Gianni Giacomelli, a Benedictine monk from Camaldolese, Prior of the Hermitage of Fonte Avellana, were invited as speakers. I had no doubts that, given the calibers on the pitch, I would have witnessed an extraordinary Lectio Magistralis.

I summarize the conclusions that the two rapporteurs found completely in agreement.

The ability to be authentically inside the experience of the other is achieved in the presence of three elements:

1. Knowing how to see. In a world made up of images, saturated with inputs of all kinds and without measure, we no longer know how to see, we have a sick gaze, which remains on the surface. The first step to stay close to the feeling (pathos) of the other is to relearn to look at the other as a person, to recognize him as an individual in his uniqueness.
2. Attention to the other. From such a type of gaze the true relationship arises, a relationship of mutual attention. The gaze becomes attention (tend-towards) between a you and an ego.
3. Memory. Every person encountered in this way, even if they will no longer be seen, will never leave our life; memory preserves the fullness of the encounter forever.

True Empathy in the highest sense is realized when we become capable of distributing to others the fullness of humanity that inhabits us.

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