Matthieu Ricard

The author of the international bestseller Happiness makes a passionate case for altruism -- and why we need it now more than ever. In Happiness , Matthieu Ricard demonstrated that true happiness is not tied to fleeting moments or sensations, but is an enduring state of soul rooted in mindfulness and compassion for others. Now he turns his lens from the personal to the global, with a rousing argument that altruism -- genuine concern for the well-being of others -- could be the saving grace of the 21st century. It is, he believes, the vital thread that can answer the main challenges of our the economy in the short term, life satisfaction in the mid-term, and environment in the long term. Ricard's message has been taken up by major economists and thinkers, including Dennis Snower, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and George Soros. Matthieu Ricard makes a robust and passionate case for cultivating altruistic love and compassion as the best means for simultaneously benefitting ourselves and our society. It's a fresh outlook on an ardent struggle -- and one that just might make the world a better place.

A powerful and wide-ranging indictment of the treatment of animals by humans--and an eloquent plea for animal rights. Every cow just wants to be happy. Every chicken just wants to be free. Every bear, dog, or mouse experiences sorrow and feels pain as intensely as any of us humans do. In a compelling appeal to reason and human kindness, Matthieu Ricard here takes the arguments from his best-sellers Altruism and Happiness to their logical conclusion: that compassion toward all beings, including our fellow animals, is a moral obligation and the direction toward which any enlightened society must aspire. He chronicles the appalling sufferings of the animals we eat, wear, and use for adornment or entertainment, and submits every traditional justification for their exploitation to scientific evidence and moral scrutiny. What arises is an unambiguous and powerful ethical imperative for treating all of the animals with whom we share this planet with respect and compassion."

Matthieu Ricard trained as a molecular biologist, working in the lab of a Nobel prize—winning scientist, but when he read some Buddhist philosophy, he became drawn to Buddhism. Eventually he left his life in science to study with Tibetan teachers, and he is now a Buddhist monk and translator for the Dalai Lama, living in the Shechen monastery near Kathmandu in Nepal. Trinh Thuan was born into a Buddhist family in Vietnam but became intrigued by the explosion of discoveries in astronomy during the 1960s. He made his way to the prestigious California Institute of Technology to study with some of the biggest names in the field and is now an acclaimed astrophysicist and specialist on how the galaxies formed. When Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Thuan met at an academic conference in the summer of 1997, they began discussing the many remarkable connections between the teachings of Buddhism and the findings of recent science. That conversation grew into an astonishing correspondence exploring a series of fascinating questions. Did the universe have a beginning? Or is our universe one in a series of infinite universes with no end and no beginning? Is the concept of a beginning of time fundamentally flawed? Might our perception of time in fact be an illusion, a phenomenon created in our brains that has no ultimate reality? Is the stunning fine-tuning of the universe, which has produced just the right conditions for life to evolve, a sign that a “principle of creation” is at work in our world? If such a principle of creation undergirds the workings of the universe, what does that tell us about whether or not there is a divine Creator? How does the radical interpretation of reality offered by quantum physics conform to and yet differ from the Buddhist conception of reality? What is consciousness and how did it evolve? Can consciousness exist apart from a brain generating it? The stimulating journey of discovery the authors traveled in their discussions is re-created beautifully in The Quantum and the Lotus , written in the style of a lively dialogue between friends. Both the fundamental teachings of Buddhism and the discoveries of contemporary science are introduced with great clarity, and the reader will be profoundly impressed by the many correspondences between the two streams of thought and revelation. Through the course of their dialogue, the authors reach a remarkable meeting of minds, ultimately offering a vital new understanding of the many ways in which science and Buddhism confirm and complement each other and of the ways in which, as Matthieu Ricard writes, “knowledge of our spirits and knowledge of the world are mutually enlightening and empowering.” “ The Quantum and the Lotus is a mind-expanding, eye-opening exploration of the exciting parallels between cutting-edge thinking in physics and Buddhism–a scintillating conversation any thinking person would delight in overhearing.” —Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence “ The Quantum and the Lotus is the rich and inspiring result of a deeply interesting dialogue between Western science and Buddhist philosophy. This remarkable book will contribute greatly to a better understanding of the true nature of our world and the way we live our lives.” —His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The Skill of Happiness "By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it" Matthieu Ricard Matthieu Ricard Matthieu Ricard was born in Paris in 1946, the son of the late Jean-Francois Revel, a well-know French philosopher and the painter of Yahne le Toumlin. In 1967 he traveled to India for the first time where he met great Tibetan spiritual masters. After completing his doctoral thesis in molecular genetics in 1972, Mattieu decided to forsake his scientific career at the Institut Pasteur and to concentrate on the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. Matthieu is deeply engaged in research on the effect of mind training on the brain. Since 1989 he is the French interpreter for HH the Dalai Lama. Matthieu is also a well-known photographer as well as the author of many books, amongst them, Happiness: A guide to developing life's most important skill (Atlantic Books, 2003). The royalties of his books are entirely donated to humanitarian projects in Asia, via Karuna-Shechen. Matthieu lives in Shechen Monastery in Nepal. www.matthieuricard.org Karuna-Shechen All the proceeds are donated to Karuna-Shechen, a charitable not for profit association founded by Matthieu Ricard. Karuna means compassion in Sanskrit and is the same name of an area in Eastern Tibet. In Tibet, Nepal and India, Karuna-Shechen has built and maintains sixteen medical clinics in which 100,000 patients are treated yearly, more than half of them for free. It has builty twelve schools, including one for one thousand six hundred children, three homes for the elderly and ten bridges. Karuna is run by a dedicated group of volunteers and has kept its overhead expenses to less than 2% of ... ©2009 Matthieu Ricard; (P)2009 No Mud No Lotus