Day Eight
DAY 8: Dr Elise Bialylew interviews Matthieu Ricard
You’ll learn:
- An inspiring story of how Matthieu moved from science to meditation and what he learned through long-term silent meditation retreats.
- How meditation can support greater happiness in your life.
- The scientific research supporting the benefits of meditation.
- A new way of thinking about your “self” that frees you from unnecessary suffering.
Matthieu Ricard is a French writer, photographer, translator and Buddhist monk who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal. Matthieu Ricard grew up among the personalities and ideas of French intellectual circles. He received a PhD degree in molecular genetics from the Pasteur Institute in 1972. He then decided to forsake his scientific career and instead practice Tibetan Buddhism, living mainly in the Himalayas. Ricard is a board member of the Mind and Life Institute. He received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian work in the East with Karuna-Shechen, the non-profit organization he co-founded in 2000 with Rabjam Rinpoche. Since 1989, he has acted as the French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama.Prefer to listen, rather than watch? Click the play button below.
[accessally_missing_any_tag tag_id='895' comment='MLP22']Want to read the transcript from this interview? Mind Life Project members receive access to interview transcripts and 6 months of mindfulness support, live meditations, and more
[/accessally_missing_any_tag]
[accessally_has_any_tag tag_id='895' comment='MLP22']Mind Life Project bonus content:
Click here to download the transcript for Dr Elise Bialylew's interview with Matthieu Ricard.[/accessally_has_any_tag]
Your meditations for today
Meditation for cooling your anger by Rick Hanson
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and New York Times best-selling author. His books include Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing and Mother Nurture. Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and on the Advisory Board of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkley, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide.
Getting Unstuck Meditation By Kristin Neff
Kristin Neff is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion nearly twenty years ago. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is the author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. In conjunction with her colleague Dr. Chris Germer, she has developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. They co-authored the Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook and Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program: A Guide for Professionals. For more information on self-compassion, go to www.self-compassion.org.
Bonus: This meditation is available for you to download and keep.
[accessally_missing_any_tag tag_id='895' comment='MLP22']
[/accessally_missing_any_tag]
Welcome to week 2
Today you'll hear from Matthieu Ricard, known to many as “the happiest man in the world” (although he doesn’t really like being called that!).
He is a person of great wisdom, altruism and compassion. He is one of those rare people who deeply and wholeheartedly walks his talk.
He has been the subject of intensive neurological testing with state of the art technology and the results were apparently so surprising that the researchers coined the title, “the happiest man in the world.”
So when Matthieu tells us that we vastly underestimate the power of transformation of the mind, he is well worth listening to!
He speaks of the importance of working on becoming better human beings from the inside out. What he means by that is that to be able to do good work in the world (which is his lifelong commitment), we firstly need to cultivate qualities such as compassion, altruism, and emotional intelligence within ourselves:
“So, in a way, the motto would be transforming yourself to better transform the world or to better serve others.”
According to Matthieu:
"… what comes through meditation training is cultivating an inner space of freedom that’s able to accommodate all the ups and downs of life.”
stay on track
[progressally_objectives]
[progressally_progress_pie_chart size="80"]
