TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – IS THERE HAPPINESS IN OCCUPIED TIBET?
In my opinion, happiness cannot be discovered by mind training for the mental experience of happiness demands correspondence with external reality. Reality of Tibet is described by Occupation, Subjugation, Suppression, Oppression, and Tyranny. No amount of mind training will change that reality. To find happiness in Tibet, we need to free the mind from burdens imposed by foreign conquest.
Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162 USA
SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE
DAILY MAIL
HAPPINESS: DALAI LAMA’S RIGHT-HAND MAN REVEALS THE KEY TO CONTENTMENT
Meet the happiest man in the world: The Dalai Lama’s right-hand
man reveals the key to contentment
By Jane Mulkerrins
Published: 19:03 EST, 28 November 2015 | Updated: 00:21 EST, 29 November 2015.
He has written bestselling books, led world finance leaders in meditation and been dubbed the most contented person on the planet.
But as geneticist-turned-Buddhist monk MATTHIEU RICARD tells
Jane Mulkerrins, the secret to true happiness goes deeper than worldly
successHappiness, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard insists, is something we can
all achieve to a greater degree with ‘mind-training’While I may not have
empirical evidence to back this up, I’d wager that New York City is one of
the most selfish places on earth. Dominated by the buzz of Wall Street
dollars, fuelled by the froth of the fashion industry, it’s a city obsessed
with the twin pillars of power and wealth, and populated largely by
ambitious individualists. There’s a strong history of philanthropy among the
one per cent, but naming a library after oneself is hardly an act of
selfless charity.
And yet, on a Monday evening in an elegant Manhattan
museum, a well-heeled crowd of New Yorkers is giving a rock-star reception
to a Tibetan Buddhist monk, who is here to preach on the transformative
value of altruism.
Brought up in Paris, Matthieu Ricard, 69, has been named
‘the happiest man in the world’, and is best known for his two bestselling
books The Art of Meditation and Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most
Important Skill (Matthieu’s share of the proceeds goes to funding hospitals
and schools in Tibet). In the latter, Matthieu presents the notion that our
concept of happiness is flawed: true happiness is not a feeling of elation
or euphoria; rather, it is ‘a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an
exceptionally healthy mind – contentment rather than the collection of good
times’.
In both books, he offers ways to train one’s brain, suggesting that
happiness – like meditation – can be learned. ‘Meditation is not a mere
relaxation method but a long-term cultivation of human qualities,’ he
says.In spite of spending much of his time sequestered in a Himalayan
hermitage, Matthieu – a former high-flying molecular geneticist and the son
of a prominent French philosopher – has become an enormously influential
figure internationally and a regular fixture at the World Economic Forum in
Davos, where he leads masters of the financial universe in morning
meditation.
‘I sometimes feel sad when sadness is the appropriate response,
for a disaster in Nepal… But sadness is not mutually exclusive with a
genuine sense of flourishing,’ said Matthieu (pictured with Jane
Mulkerrins)
He is the right-hand man of the Dalai Lama and one of his two TED
talks, on the habits of happiness, has been watched by more than five and a
half million people.His writings on happiness and meditation have also led
to his weighty new tome Altruism, described in a review by The Wall Street
Journal as ‘a careful, detailed, hard-nosed assessment of what is needed
both for individual happiness and for the welfare of the planet’.In an era
defined by image, introspection and the selfie – which neatly sums up what
Matthieu refers to as the ‘narcissistic epidemic’ – the notion of altruism
might appear to have been abandoned by modern society. But running to more
than 850 pages, and bringing together economics, evolution and environmental
challenges, as well as medicine and neuroscience, Matthieu’s Altruism: The
Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and The World is a positive,
polemical call to arms. ‘It is so rich, so diverse, and yes, so long, that
it is best kept as an inspiring resource to be consulted over many years,’
advises the WSJ.
On stage this evening, dressed in his red robes, Matthieu
admits that he never intended to produce such a hefty read. And he certainly
never planned to write a book about the environment. ‘But in the end, it is
simply a matter of altruism versus selfishness,’ he says. ‘If a rhinoceros
ran into the room now, you would all run away,’ he notes to the hugely
attentive audience. ‘But if I say that a rhinoceros might be coming in 30
years, no one will do anything.’
A few days after his talk, I meet Matthieu
at the exclusive Manhattan townhouse where he is staying during his
week-long visit to the city, a four-floored brownstone belonging to Andrea
Soros Colombel, the philanthropist daughter of billionaire investor George,
who has a charity that has supported Tibetan culture and people for more
than 20 years. It feels incongruous to be meeting in a place of such wealth.
A little later, when we leave the house together to take some photographs,
Matthieu comments, with a chuckle, that the entrance vestibule is the size
of his hermitage.As he sinks into a large grey armchair in the top-floor
lounge, I ask how he copes with the frenetic pace of his speaking schedule.
This week alone, he has given scores of presentations and talks to NGOs, at
corporations including Google and alongside numerous luminaries such as
Richard Gere and Arianna Huffington. ‘It’s temporary,’ he smiles
beatifically and shrugs. ‘If it were a full-time job, I would quit.’
At the
Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal, by contrast, he rises at 4am
and meditates until daybreak. ‘Then I take tea on the balcony, watching the
birds on the mountains,’ he says. After another meditation, he eats lunch
and in the afternoon studies Tibetan texts. ‘Or, in the past few years, I’ve
worked on my books.’ He meditates again until sunset, says prayers, and goes
to bed early.
Later today, however, he will be making a diversion en route
back to Nepal, flying to his native France for three weeks to visit his
92-year-old mother, herself now a Buddhist nun who lives in the Dordogne.The
Ricard family, it seems, are an impressive lot. Matthieu’s elder sister
spent her career working with mute children, but at 42 years old was
diagnosed with Parkinson’s. ‘She’s incredibly courageous, never complains,
but she’s had a lot of suffering,’ says Matthieu.
‘I love children. But the
idea that I need to be their father? I don’t see the need for that,’ said
Matthieu
For his part, Matthieu is witty and quick to laugh; the word twinkly
feels belittling to apply to one so spiritually enlightened, but he exudes a
calm, composed but playful charisma.Growing up in lofty circles in Paris –
Matthieu’s father Jean-François Revel was a prominent philosopher and
journalist and a former member of the French Resistance, while his mother
Yahne le Toumelin was a painter – he was surrounded by artists and
intellectuals. He first had lunch with the Russian composer Stravinsky aged
just 16.
Was it, I ask, a completely secular upbringing? ‘Not completely,’
says Matthieu. ‘No religious practice, but from when I was about 14 my
mother got into studying the Christian mystics. ‘Buddhism didn’t have much
to offer at the time because there were not many good translations.’Matthieu
is clearly fearsomely bright – though he wears it lightly – and speaks
French, English and Tibetan fluently. ‘I learned Greek, Latin and German,
which I forgot. And I used to speak fluent Spanish when I was a kid, which I
also forgot,’ he says ruefully. ‘I was printing books in Delhi, so I know
everything about printing in Hindi, but I could not have a conversation in
it,’ he adds.
He is also an accomplished photographer, praised by the
legendary Henri Cartier-Bresson, who said of his work, ‘Matthieu’s spiritual
life and his camera are one, from which spring these images, fleeting and
eternal.’When Matthieu was 18, his parents separated (his father left his
mother for the journalist Claude Sarraute), and Matthieu started studying to
become a molecular biologist. But he felt that something was missing. ‘I
didn’t know what. But it was some sort of aspiration. I could sense a
potential, but I didn’t know where to look,’ he recalls, removing his
round-rimmed glasses and cleaning them with a cloth he produces from the
folds of his robes.Inspired by films about Tibetan monks made by his friend
Arnaud Desjardins, Matthieu decided the place to look was India, and in
1972, aged 26, he left Paris for Darjeeling to study under Kangyur Rinpoche,
a Tibetan master in the Nyingma tradition, the most ancient school of
Buddhism. He remained in Darjeeling for seven years, during four of which he
never left his hermitage – a small hut on stilts, facing the mountains, with
no electricity or running water. ‘It was the most peaceful, satisfying time
of my life; I felt totally content,’ he sighs.
His father, while not
impressed by his son’s decision to abandon his successful career for
Buddhism, did not stand in his way. His mother, meanwhile, took a three-year
retreat and followed her son into the faith.Matthieu still sees himself more
as a scientist than a philosopher and believes that from a Buddhist
perspective the contemplative or meditative tradition is a science of the
mind.
Neuroscientist Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
conducted experiments on experienced meditators, each of whom had completed
up to 50,000 hours of meditation, first when their brains were in a neutral
state and then while meditating on generating a state of ‘unconditional
loving kindness and compassion’. The results showed huge changes in brain
activity between the two states, with Matthieu’s results showing the
greatest difference they had ever measured, leading to him to being dubbed
the ‘happiest man in the world’.
He, however, bats the title away. ‘There is
no scientific basis to it; there is no happiness centre in the brain,’ he
insists. ‘What we did at Madison was testing the effects of compassion and
meditation. ‘It is true that it was of unprecedented magnitude,’ he
concedes. ‘But what do they know about seven billion people? They have not
all been measured.‘It’s not a terrible title,’ he admits, ‘but it sort of
stuck like a piece of Scotch tape that you can’t get rid of.’But happiness,
he insists, is something we can all achieve to a greater degree with
‘mind-training. ‘Not everyone will play the piano like Rachmaninoff, but if
you spend three years practising for half an hour a day, you will definitely
enjoy playing the piano,’ he asserts.‘You may not be like Federer when you
play tennis, but if you practise, you may fully enjoy playing tennis. Why
not the same thing with human qualities? If you can become good at chess or
music, why not at altruism and compassion?’Just two weeks of practising
compassion meditation increases pro-social behaviour (showing kindness,
volunteering, donating or cooperating) and reduces activity in the area of
the brain associated with fear, he says.
In studies conducted with children,
who took part in mindfulness and cooperation exercises three times a week,
their pro-social behaviour increased exponentially. Such findings, Matthieu
believes, prove the enormous potential meditation has to reduce
discrimination and exclusion.And, as the book’s bold title claims, Matthieu
also believes that greater altruism and compassion can improve our world
beyond the individual level, too – at a cultural and societal level.‘Aristotle
was a great philosopher, but he was in favour of slavery,’ he points out.‘Nobody
is in favour of slavery any more. Did human beings change? No. Institutions
changed.‘Culture is cumulative,’ he believes. ‘We don’t have to re-examine
every generation. ‘Whether slavery is wrong and we should abolish it, or
whether women should have the right to vote – that is acquired in our
culture.’Matthieu likens it to ‘two knives sharpening. Individuals change
culture, culture changes the individuals – and the next generation will
change it again,’ he says.
Matthieu’s is a powerfully positive and
inspirational message; does he ever feel unhappy, I wonder? ‘No, I don’t
feel fundamentally unhappy,’ he says. ‘I sometimes feel sad when sadness is
the appropriate response, for a disaster in Nepal or a massacre – how can
you not feel sad?‘But sadness is not mutually exclusive with a genuine sense
of flourishing, because it gives rise to compassion; it gives rise to the
determination to do something,’ he asserts. Contrary though it may sound,
‘happiness shouldn’t always be pleasant,’ he says.
What about regrets, I ask.
Does he harbour any of those? ‘Regret?’ he cries, motioning around the
expensively decorated mansion. ‘Every time I look at these things, I feel,
wow, imagine the responsibility of taking care of this place.‘My teacher
used to say if you have a horse, you have the suffering of having a horse.
If you have a house, you have the suffering of having a house. So much
trouble to fix the tap, the electricity…’ he chuckles.Has he ever regretted
not having a family of his own?‘Absolutely no regret,’ he says firmly. ‘We
have so many children in the monastery, and we have so many children in the
school there. ‘I love children. But the idea that I need to be their father?
I don’t see the need for that.’
Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on
Sunday & Metro Media Group© Associated Newspapers Ltd
The Rudi-Grant Connection 