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.
