Tag Archives: Whole Misery

Boosting Happiness – Is there Happiness in Occupied Tibet?

In my opinion, happiness cannot be discovered by mind training. The mental experience of happiness demands correspondence with an external reality. The 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. The path to happiness brings me to the problem of military occupation of Tibet. If it is possible, I shall choose selfless love to evict the military occupier of Tibet.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162 USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

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.’

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.

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.

‘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 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 behavior (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 behavior 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 favor of slavery,’ he points out.‘Nobody is in favor 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.’

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