Notebooks of a Wandering Monk

by Ricard, Matthieu; Browner, Jesse

• ISBN13: 9780262048293
• ISBN10: 0262048299
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780262375658
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-10-03
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• More Book Details
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Summary

The memoirs of renowned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard and his extraordinary journey toward inner freedom and compassion in action.

Matthieu Ricard began his spiritual transformation at the age of twenty-one, in Darjeeling, India, when he met Tibetan teacher Kangyur Rinpoche, who deeply impressed the young man with his extraordinary quality of being. In Notebooks of a Wandering Monk, Ricard tells the simple yet extraordinary story of his journey and the remarkable men and women who inspired him along the way, including Kangyur Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and the fourteenth Dalai Lama, as well as great luminaries such as Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall, and a number of leading scientists.

Growing up, Ricard, the son of philosopher Jean-François Revel and artist Yahne Le Toumelin, regularly found himself in the company of intellectuals and artists such as Luis Buñuel, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Igor Stravinsky. Young Ricard loved nature, classical music, and science and dreamed of unlocking the mysteries of molecular biology. But, six years after meeting Kangyur Rinpoche, Ricard gave up a promising career in genetics to pursue a meditative life in the remote Himalayas. While spending half a century in India, Bhutan, and Nepal, he visited Tibet more than twenty times and spent years publishing rare Tibetan texts and photographing his spiritual teachers and the world in which they lived. 

Elegantly translated by Jesse Browner and accompanied by more than fifty full-color photographs, some of which are Ricard’s own, Notebooks of a Wandering Monk charts Ricard’s lifelong path to wisdom and compassion. This candid and reflective memoir will inspire all readers, wherever they may be on their own journey to a meaningful and well-lived life.

Author Biography

Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk, humanitarian, writer, photographer, doctor in cellular genetics, and the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama. All of his royalties are donated to Karuna-Shechen, the humanitarian association he created twenty-two years ago, which benefits more than 450,000 underprivileged people every year in India, Nepal, and Tibet.

Table of Contents

AUTHOR’S NOTE xi
I MEETING THE MASTER
1 JUNE 12, 1967 3
2 FROM VARANASI TO KASHMIR 15
3 FROM DAMASCUS TO PARIS 27
4 A NOMADIC CHILDHOOD 31
5 THE INSTITUT PASTEUR 45
6 SEVEN ROUND TRIPS AND A ONE-WAY 51
II SEVEN YEARS IN DARJEELING
7 AT HOME WITH MY TEACHER 67
8 THE LIFE OF KANGYUR RINPOCHE 85
9 WHAT IS AN AUTHENTIC TEACHER? 97
10 IN THE HERMITAGE 105
11 A PRINTER IN DELHI 115
12 IN THE KATHMANDU VALLEY 127
III A SECOND SUN
13 TEACHINGS AND MONASTIC VOWS 139
14 DILGO KHYENTSE RINPOCHE: A MASTER AMONG MASTERS 147
15 JOURNEY TO FRANCE: THE CHANTELOUBE STUDY CENTER 159
16 FIRST MEETING WITH THE DALAI LAMA 165
17 IN THE LAND OF THE THUNDER DRAGON 169
18 ON RETREAT WITH DILGO KHYENTSE RINPOCHE 181
19 THE PALACE OF GREAT BLISS 189
20 A BRIEF SEPARATION 197
21 THE TRANSMISSION OF THE THREE BASKETS 203
22 THE LAMA OF LION’S ROCK 209
23 DAILY LIFE WITH MY TEACHER 215
24 SOME MANIFESTATIONS OF ENLIGHTENMENT 229
25 THE SHECHEN MONASTERY IN NEPAL 243
26 FIRST VOYAGE TO TIBET: LHASA AND CENTRAL TIBET 261
27 EASTERN TIBET 275
28 A HIDDEN MASTER: ZENKAR RINPOCHE 299
29 THE WHEEL OF TIME EMPOWERMENT: THE KALACHAKRA 305
30 SECOND JOURNEY TO EASTERN TIBET 315
31 TWO SCHOLARS 331
32 EXILE IN DARJEELING 341
33 REUNIONS AND FAREWELLS 349
IV PRESERVING THE LEGACY
34 ARCHIVIST 361
35 PRESERVING THE SACRED ARTS 369
36 SEARCHING FOR THE REINCARNATION OF DILGO KHYENTSE RINPOCHE 377
37 MONK AND PHOTOGRAPHER 389
38 AN IMMENSE HEART: THE DALAI LAMA 399
V TWENTY-ONE JOURNEYS TO THE LAND OF SNOWS
39 ADVENTURES ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 429
40 THE SILVER MOUNTAIN AND THE LAKE OF ETERNAL FRESHNESS 441
41 ON THE TRAIL OF SHABKAR 455
42 HIGHER THAN EVEREST? AMNYE MACHEN 471
43 HORSEMEN ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 481
44 A TEACHER’S RETURN TO THE VALLEY OF RENEWAL 485
45 ENLIGHTENED VAGABOND 491
46 A TOWN DEVOTED TO PHILOSOPHY 503
VI IN THE HEART OF THE MAELSTROM
47 THE MONK AND THE PHILOSOPHER 511
48 FROM ONE BOOK TO THE NEXT 521
49 AN UNEXPECTED RETURN TO SCIENCE 549
50 SERVING THE NEEDIEST: KARUNA-SHECHEN 581
51 AMATEUR DIPLOMAT 601
52 THE CLARION OF FAME 607
53 DORDOGNE, FORTY YEARS ON 621
VII A RETURN TO THE SOURCE
54 SNOW LION FORTRESS 641
55 PEMAKÖ: THE PLACE SHAPED LIKE A LOTUS 649
56 HERMITAGE OF THE MORNING CALM 659
EPILOGUE 673
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 681
NOTES 683
PHOTO CREDITS 703