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Notebooks of a Wandering Monk

By Matthieu Ricard
Translated by Jesse Browner

By Matthieu Ricard
Translated by Jesse Browner

By Matthieu Ricard
Translated by Jesse Browner

By Matthieu Ricard
Translated by Jesse Browner

By Matthieu Ricard
Translated by Jesse Browner

By Matthieu Ricard
Translated by Jesse Browner

Best Seller
Hardcover $39.95

Oct 03, 2023 | ISBN 9780262048293

Ebook $24.99

Oct 24, 2023 | ISBN 9780262375658

Ebook $24.99

Oct 03, 2023 | ISBN 9780262375641

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    Notebooks of a Wandering Monk by Matthieu Ricard
    Hardcover $39.95
    Oct 03, 2023 | ISBN 9780262048293

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      Oct 03, 2023 | ISBN 9780262048293

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    • Oct 24, 2023 | ISBN 9780262375658

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    About Notebooks of a Wandering Monk

    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.

    About Notebooks of a Wandering Monk

    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.

    About Notebooks of a Wandering Monk

    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.

    Also by Matthieu Ricard

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    Product Details

    Category: Biography & Memoir | Philosophy | Spiritual Nonfiction | Religion

    Hardcover | $39.95
    Published by The MIT Press
    Oct 03, 2023 | 720 Pages | 6 x 9 | ISBN 9780262048293

    Category: Biography & Memoir | Philosophy | Spiritual Nonfiction | Religion

    Ebook | $24.99
    Published by The MIT Press
    Oct 24, 2023 | 720 Pages | 6 x 9 | ISBN 9780262375658

    Category: Biography & Memoir | Philosophy | Spiritual Nonfiction | Religion

    Ebook | $24.99
    Published by The MIT Press
    Oct 03, 2023 | 720 Pages | 6 x 9 | ISBN 9780262375641

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    Praise

    Featured in the New York Times Magazine: The ‘World’s Happiest Man’ Shares His Three Rules for Life

    Included in Publishers Weekly‘s Fall 2023 Adult Announcements Memoirs & Biographies List

    “Matthieu Ricard is an ordained Buddhist monk and an internationally best-selling author of books about altruism, animal rights, happiness and wisdom. His humanitarian efforts led to his homeland’s awarding him the French National Order of Merit. (Ricard’s primary residence is a Nepalese monastery.) He was the Dalai Lama’s French interpreter and holds a Ph.D in cellular genetics. In the early 2000s, researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that Ricard’s brain produced gamma waves — which have been linked to learning, attention and memory — at such pronounced levels that the media named him ‘the world’s happiest man.'”
    —The New York Times Magazine

    “In Notebooks of a Wandering Monk, the memoirs of renowned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, he reflects on how our culture often associates happiness with achieving goals, acquiring possessions, professional accomplishments and, more lately, seeking validation on social media.”
    —El Pais


    “This beautifully written tome details [Ricard’s] life journey out of the world, as it were, and into wisdom and compassion. Ricard is an extraordinary exemplar. Even after decades traversing India, Nepal, and Bhutan, he demonstrates a sense of stillness and groundedness.”
    —Lion’s Roar

    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

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