Ricard is a renowned Buddhist teacher and author of several global best-selling books. He first trained as a biologist in France and is now part of the Dalai Lama's ongoing dialogue with scientists. He was dubbed "The Happiest Man in the World" after his brain was studied by scientists (mainly by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin. See http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/emotion/6205.html).
Ricard resists this label, but he's written a provocative book in which he explores happiness not as a pleasurable feeling but as a deep sense of flourishing. His definition of happiness: “a way of being that gives you the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life that pervades all emotional states, including sadness.”
He currently resides at the Shechen Monastery in Nepal where he also coordinates a number of humanitarian projects in the Himalayas. He was born to an artist mother and a famous philosopher father and grew up with a love of astronomy, skiing, sailing, and bird-watching.
In 1967, he began a promising career in the cellular genetics at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Then Ricard began to understand that human beings were the very image of what they taught. He came to see there was little connection between brilliance and character. You could be a genius and yet, at the same time, a dreadful person in your daily life. Ricard came to see that becoming an intellectual, scientist or philosopher would not necessarily make him a good human being.
So he started reading about all the great religious traditions including Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart. Yet, at the same time, there appeared to be no living tradition of these mystics; no connection to the present. One day he was seized by documentary film images of the faces of Tibetan spiritual teachers. The faces looked to him like the faces of St Francis or Meister Eckhart. These images began to change his sense of what he wanted to do with his life.
For a number of years, he traveled back and forth between Paris and the Himalayas. Then in 1972, he left the Pasteur Institute to train as a monk with the teachers he'd come to cherish.
Ricard had heard and read about Saint Francis of Assisi, Socrates, and Meister Eckhart, but he wondered how they would look. He found that spiritual sense in the present day among the Tibetan masters. “If you say,” Ricard observed, “‘Oh, he's a great spiritual teacher, but wow besides that, he's so grumpy,’ it doesn't work. It can't… There are so many, you know, unfortunately of those who look very impressive, but then if you scratch beneath the surface or if you wait long enough, you will see that there are sides of them that do not fit with what they are supposed be. So the messenger has to be the message and it has to be integrally the message.”
One of Ricard’s teachers was Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, one of the teachers for the Dalai Lama. Ricard was with him day and night for many years, “All the time, when he was giving teaching, when he was traveling, when he was meeting kings, when he was meeting farmers, and over 15 years to see that absolute coherence and consistency in every aspect of that person's life. Like the Dalai Lama, you see him in public, in private, in any circumstance, he's just an extraordinary good human being. There's no hidden side of it. So that was most inspiring. We say, that's what I could become. Here is someone who did it, so therefore it is possible.”
Now back to the research concerning what we have just described. There are at least five or six major laboratories in the United States and in Europe who are doing very in-depth research, not only in long-term meditation, but also with short-term meditation practices (i.e., meditating 20 minutes a day for eight weeks). What surprised researchers was that long-term or even short-term mind training can change the brain – even when not meditating. They found old birds learn new songs, musicians who practiced 10,000 hours or more vastly increased that part of their brain, and London cab drivers, who must to learn 20,000 street names, had the memory part of their brain greatly increased.
But what about compassion and focused attention? Can they be learned? Yes, because basically, they, too, are just another skill – but skills that can matter greatly in all of our lives. It is more than relaxation techniques or meditation -- it is actually training one’s mind!
Albert Einstein once wrote: "A human being is a part of the whole called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind."
Humans are not separate entities. We are all connected and deeply interdependent. It is knowledge of this interdependency that is the root of altruism and compassion. If I think of being a separate entity, then I create a self-centered bubble around myself and try to build my own happiness. Building separate “bubbles” is not working. Not because it is immoral to be self-centered, but because self-centeredness is dysfunctional. It is at odds with the reality around us and doesn't work.
But what is happiness? The world tells us that if we buy this or that we will be happy. But the reality is that buying things does not lead to a general sense of flourishing. Happiness is not a kind of euphoria or endless succession of pleasant experiences – or shopping sprees! That’s a recipe for exhaustion rather than happiness.
Ricard tells us that pleasure depends very much on circumstances. Sensations change from pleasurable to neutral and to unpleasurable. Even the most pleasurable food you eat is, for the first time, very delicious. Even for two or three times it still is. But after ten times, you can get nauseous. Now you are cold and shivering, and the bonfire is a great delight, but after a few minutes it’s hot, you move back. A beautiful musical composition after being first heard is wonderful. but having to listen to it for 24 hours is a nightmare.
Isn’t it better to think of happiness as a way of being that gives us the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life, through all emotional states, including sadness?
So how do we become happy? We cannot, in the same moment of thought, wish to do something good to someone and to harm that person at the same time. They are mutually incompatible -- like hot and cold water. So the more we bring benevolence in our minds, at every moment, there becomes less and less space for hatred. It's very simple, but we often don't think constantly of benevolence. For example, we may exercise every morning for 20 minutes, but do we sit for 20 minutes during the day to cultivate compassion? If we do so, research tells us that our brain will change. What we are will change.
Mind-exercise, like physical exercise is a skill. It needs to be identified, practiced, and cultivated. What is good is it to learn to play chess without practicing it? In the same way, we all have thoughts of altruistic love, but do we cultivate its practice? We cannot learn to play the piano by practicing 20 seconds every two weeks. It takes regular, daily practice.
In a further example, Ricard noted a friend of his who is 63 years of age. He used to be a runner when he was young. But as he grew older, he gave it up. Afew years ago, he started to run again. But when he started he could not run more than five minutes without gasping for breath. Recently, he ran the Montreal Marathon at 63. He had to start practicing running again. He always had the potential to run, but it was useless until he practiced doing it. We all have the same potential for mind training, but if we don't DO it, it's not going to happen because we wish to!
Another apparent quality of very wise and spiritual people seems to be humor. For example, the Dalai Lama always seems to be laughing -- and he’s funny, too. Where does humor come into this wisdom? Why do so many Tibetan monks seem to be constantly smiling? (As a side note, I experienced not only the smiling humor of a Cambodian monk I spent some time with, but also the constant serenity of his presence.)
Ricard believes that humor is about non-self. The best butt of any joke is always your self! When your ego is not a target to protect from the arrows of praise, blame and criticism, you have nothing to lose or to gain. Humor gives us a sense of less vulnerability and this becomes a real strength. People think that a strong ego is a strength, but it’s not – it is a great vulnerability.
While today’s blog has primarily been about Tibetan monks, it is not outside the Christian tradition. The kind of mystic contemplatives I hear described in Krista Tippett’s interview of Matthieu Ricard is precisely the image I have of the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus knew about attracting others to himself in order to show the Father. I believe he was a smiling man of humor and the kind of person to whom we all would be naturally drawn. I am reminded that faith is better caught than taught. I hope today’s blog will get you thinking about practicing benevolence, love and compassion – it’s truly a mind-expander!
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