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-Fran ois Revel and artist Yahne Le Toumelin, regularly found himself in the company of intellectuals and artists such as Luis Bunuel, 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.
By:
Matthieu Ricard
Translated by:
Jesse Browner
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 164mm,
Spine: 46mm
Weight: 1.196kg
ISBN: 9780262048293
ISBN 10: 0262048299
Pages: 720
Publication Date: 07 November 2023
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
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
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.
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Included in Publishers Weekly's Fall 2023 Adult Announcements Memoirs & Biographies List
