Buddhist monk

Born in France in 1946, Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk who left a career in cellular genetics to study Buddhism in the Himalayas over 45 years ago. He is an international best-selling author and a prominent speaker on the world stage, at the World Economic Forum at Davos, the GNH forums at the United Nations, and at TED where his talks on happiness and altruism has been viewed by over seven million people.

His books have been translated into over twenty languages and include The Monk and the Philosopher; The Quantum and the Lotus; Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill; and Why Meditate?, Altruism: The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World, A Plea for the Animals, and most recently, Beyond the Self: A conversation between Neuroscience and Buddhism, as well as five photography books.

As a trained scientist and Buddhist monk, he is uniquely positioned in the dialogue between East and West. He is an active participant in the current scientific research on the effects of meditation on the brain. He lives in Nepal and devotes all the proceedings of his books and activities to 200 humanitarian projects in Tibet, India, and Nepal.