8/13/2019 Ο Matthieu Ricard μιλάει για την ευτυχία

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Ο Matthieu Ricard μιλάει γιατην ευτυχία

So, I guess it is a result of globalization that you can find Coca-Cola tins on top of Everest anda Buddhist monk in Monterey. (Laughter) And so I just came, two days ago, from theHimalayas to your kind invitation. So I would like to invite you, also, for a while, to theHimalayas themselves. And to show the place where meditators, like me, who began withbeing a molecular biologist in Pasteur Institute, and found their way to the mountains.So these are a few images I was lucky to take and be there. There's the Mount Kailash inEastern Tibet -- wonderful setting. This is from Marlboro country. (Laughter) This is aturquoise lake. A meditator. This is the hottest day of the year somewhere in Eastern Tibet,on August 1. And the night before, we camped, and my Tibetan friends said, "We are going tosleep outside." And I said, "Why? We have enough space in the tent." They said, "Yes, but it'ssummertime." (Laughter)

So now, we are going to speak of happiness. As a Frenchman, I must say that there are a lotof French intellectuals that think happiness is not at all interesting. (Laughter) I just wrote anessay on happiness, and there was a controversy. And someone wrote an article saying,"Don't impose on us the dirty work of happiness." (Laughter) "We don't care about beinghappy. We need to live with passion. We like the ups and downs of life. We like our sufferingbecause it's so good when it ceases for a while." (Laughter)This is what I see from the balcony of my hermitage in the Himalayas. It's about two metersby three, and you are all welcome any time. (Laughter)Now, let's come to happiness or well-being. And first of all, you know, despite what theFrench intellectuals say, it seems that no one wakes up in the morning thinking, "May I sufferthe whole day?" (Laughter) Which means that somehow -- consciously or not, directly orindirectly, in the short or the long term, whatever we do, whatever we hope, whatever wedream -- somehow, is related to a deep, profound desire for well-being or happiness. As

Pascal said, even the one who hangs himself, somehow, is looking for cessation of suffering -- he finds no other way. But then, if you look in the literature, East and West, you can findincredible diversity of definition of happiness. Some people say, I only believed inremembering the past, imagining the future, never the present. Some people say happiness isright now; it's the quality of the freshness of the present moment. And that led to HenriBergson, the French philosopher, to say, "All the great thinkers of humanity have lefthappiness in the vague so that they could define -- each of them could define their ownterms."Well, that would be fine if it was just a secondary preoccupation in life. But now, if it issomething that is going to determine the quality of every instant of our life, then we betterknow what it is, have some clearer idea. And probably, the fact that we don't know that iswhy, so often, although we seek happiness, it seems we turn our back to it. Although we wantto avoid suffering, it seems we are running somewhat towards it. And that can also come fromsome kind of confusions.One of the most common ones is happiness and pleasure. But, if you look at thecharacteristics of those two, pleasure is contingent upon time, upon its object, upon theplace. It is something that -- changes of nature. Beautiful chocolate cake: first serving isdelicious, second one not so much, then we feel disgust. (Laughter) That's the nature ofthings. We get tired. I used to be a fan of Bach. I used to play it on the guitar, you know. I canhear it two, three, five times. If I had to hear it 24 hours, non-stop, it might be very tiring.If youare feeling very cold, you come near a fire, it's so wonderful. Then, after some moments, you

just go a little back, and then it starts burning. It sort of uses itself as you experience it. Andalso, again, it can -- also, it's something that you -- it is not something that is radiatingoutside. Like, you can feel intense pleasure and some others around you can be suffering alot.Now, what, then, will be happiness? And happiness, of course, is such a vague word, so let'ssay well-being. And so, I think the best definition, according to the Buddhist view, is that well-being is not just a mere pleasurable sensation. It is a deep sense of serenity and fulfillment, a

8/13/2019 Ο Matthieu Ricard μιλάει για την ευτυχία

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state that actually pervades and underlies all emotional states, and all the joys and sorrowsthat can come one's way. For you, that might be surprising. Can we have this kind of well-being while being sad? In a way, why not? Because we are speaking of a different level.Look at the waves coming here to shore. When you are at the bottom of the wave, you hit thebottom. You hit the solid rock. When you are surfing on the top, you are all elated. So you gofrom elation to depression -- there's no depth. Now, if you look at the high sea, there might be

beautiful, calm ocean, like a mirror. There might be storms, but the depth of the ocean is stillthere, unchanged. So now, how is that? It can only be a state of being, not just a fleetingemotion, sensation. Even joy -- that can be the spring of happiness. But there's also wicked

joy, you can rejoice in someone's suffering.So how do we proceed in our quest for happiness? Very often, we look outside. We think thatif we could gather this and that, all the conditions, something that we say, "Everything to behappy -- to have everything to be happy." That very sentence already reveals the doom ofdestruction of happiness. To have everything. If we miss something, it collapses. And also,when things go wrong, we try to fix the outside so much, but our control of the outer world islimited, temporary, and often, illusory. So now, look at inner conditions. Aren't theystronger? Isn't it the mind that translates the outer condition into happiness and suffering?Andisn't that stronger? We know, by experience, that we can be what we call "a littleparadise," and yet, be completely unhappy within.

The Dalai Lama was once in Portugal, and there was a lot of construction going oneverywhere. So one evening, he said, "Look, you are doing all these things, but isn't it nice,also, to build something within?" And he said, "Unless that -- even you get high-tech flat onthe 100th floor of a super-modern and comfortable building, if you are deeply unhappywithin ,all you are going to look for is a window from which to jump." So now, at theopposite, we know a lot of people who, in very difficult circumstances, manage to keepserenity, inner strength, inner freedom, confidence. So now, if the inner conditions arestronger -- of course, the outer conditions do influence, and it's wonderful to live longer,healthier, to have access to information, education, to be able to travel, to have freedom. It'shighly desirable .However, this is not enough. Those are just auxiliary, help conditions. Theexperience that translates everything is within the mind. So then, when we ask oneself how tonurture the condition for happiness, the inner conditions, and which are those which willundermine happiness. So then, this just needs to have some experience.

We have to know from ourselves, there are certain states of mind that are conducive to thisflourishing, to this well-being, what the Greeks called eudaimonia, flourishing. There are somewhich are adverse to this well-being. And so, if we look from our own experience,anger,hatred, jealousy, arrogance, obsessive desire, strong grasping, they don't leave us in such agood state after we have experienced it. And also, they are detrimental to others'happiness. So we may consider that the more those are invading our mind, and, like a chainreaction, the more we feel miserable, we feel tormented. At the opposite, everyone knowsdeep within that an act of selfless generosity, if from the distance, without anyone knowinganything about it, we could save a child's life, make someone happy. We don't need therecognition. We don't need any gratitude. Just the mere fact of doing that fills such a sense ofadequation with our deep nature. And we would like to be like that all the time.So is that possible, to change our way of being, to transform one's mind? Aren't thosenegative emotions, or destructive emotions, inherent to the nature of mind? Is changepossible in our emotions, in our traits, in our moods? For that we have to ask, what is natureof mind? And if we look from the experiential point of view, there is a primary quality ofconsciousness that's just the mere fact to be cognitive, to be aware. Consciousness is like amirror that allows all images to rise on it. You can have ugly faces, beautiful faces in themirror. The mirror allows that, but the mirror is not tainted, is not modified, is not altered bythose images. Likewise, behind every single thought there is the bare consciousness, pureawareness. This is the nature. It cannot be tainted intrinsically with hatred or jealousybecause, then, if it was always there -- like a dye that would permeate the whole cloth --then itwould be found all the time, somewhere. We know we're not always angry, always jealous,always generous.So, because the basic fabric of consciousness is this pure cognitive quality that differentiatesit from a stone, there is a possibility for change because all emotions are fleeting. That is theground for mind training. Mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mentalfactors cannot happen at the same time. You could go from love to hate.But you cannot, atthe same time, toward the same object, the same person, want to harm and want to do

8/13/2019 Ο Matthieu Ricard μιλάει για την ευτυχία

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good. You cannot, in the same gesture, shake hand and give a blow. So, there are naturalantidotes to emotions that are destructive to our inner well-being. So that's the way toproceed. Rejoicing compared to jealousy. A kind of sense of inner freedom as opposite tointense grasping and obsession. Benevolence, loving kindness against hatred.But, of course,each emotion then would need a particular antidote.

Another way is to try to find a general antidote to all emotions, and that's by looking at the

very nature. Usually, when we feel annoyed, hatred or upset with someone, or obsessed withsomething, the mind goes again and again to that object. Each time it goes to the object, itreinforces that obsession or that annoyance. So then, it's a self-perpetuating process. Sowhat we need to look now is, instead of looking outward, we look inward. Look at angeritself. It looks very menacing, like a billowing monsoon cloud or thunderstorm. But we think wecould sit on the cloud -- but if you go there, it's just mist. Likewise, if you look at the thought ofanger, it will vanish like frost under the morning sun. If you do this again and again, thepropensity, the tendencies for anger to arise again will be less and less each time youdissolve it. And, at the end, although it may rise, it will just cross the mind, like a bird crossingthe sky without leaving any track. So this is the principal of mind training.Now, it takes time because we -- it took time for all those faults in our mind, the tendencies, tobuild up, so it will take time to unfold them as well. But that's the only way to go. Mindtransformation -- that is the very meaning of meditation. It means familiarization with a new

way of being, new way of perceiving things, which is more in adequation with reality, withinterdependence, with the stream and continuous transformation, which our being and ourconsciousness is.So, the interface with cognitive science, since we need to come to that, and it was, I suppose,the subject of -- we have to deal in such a short time with brain plasticity. The brain wasthought to be more or less fixed. All the nominal connections, in numbers and quantities, werethought -- until the last 20 years -- thought to be more or less fixed when we reached adultage. Now, recently, it has been found that it can change a lot. A violinist, as we heard, whohas done 10,000 hours of violin practice, some area that controls the movements of fingers inthe brain change a lot, increasing reinforcement of the synaptic connections. So can we dothat with human qualities? With loving kindness, with patience, with openness?So that's what those great meditators have been doing. Some of them who came to the labs,like in Madison, Wisconsin, or in Berkeley, did 20 to 40,000 hours of meditation. They do, like,

three years' retreat, where they do meditate 12 hours a day. And then, the rest of their life,they will do that three or four hours a day. They are real Olympic champions of mindtraining. (Laughter) This is the place where the meditators -- you can see it's kind ofinspiring. Now, here with 256 electrodes. (Laughter)So what did they find? Of course, same thing. The scientific embargo -- if ever has been tosubmitted to "Nature," hopefully, it will be accepted. It deals with the state of compassion,unconditional compassion. We asked meditators, who have been doing that for years andyears and years, to put their mind in a state where there's nothing but loving kindness, totalavailability to sentient being. Of course, during the training, we do that with objects. We thinkof people suffering, we think of people we love, but at some point, it can be a state which is allpervading. Here is the preliminary result, which I can show because it's already beenshown. The bell curve shows 150 controls, and what is being looked at is the differencebetween the right and the left frontal lobe. In very short, people who have more activity in theright side of the prefrontal cortex are more depressed, withdrawn. They don't describe a lot ofpositive affect. It's the opposite on the left side: more tendency to altruism,to happiness, toexpress, and curiosity and so forth. So there's a basic line for people. And also, it can bechanged. If you see a comic movie, you go off to the left side. If you are happy aboutsomething, you'll go more to the left side. If you have a bout of depression, you'll go to theright side. Here, the -0.5 is the full standard deviation of a meditator who meditated oncompassion. It's something that is totally out of the bell curve.So, I've no time to go into all the different scientific results. Hopefully, they will come. But theyfound that -- this is after three and a half hours in an fMRI, it's like coming out of a spaceship. Also, it has been shown in other labs -- for instance, Paul Ekman's labs in Berkeley -- that some meditators are able, also, to control their emotional response more than it could bethought. Like the startle experiments, for example. If you sit a guy on a chair with all this kindof apparatus measuring your physiology, and there's kind of a bomb that goes off, it's soinstinctive response that, in 20 years, they never saw anyone who will not jump. Some

8/13/2019 Ο Matthieu Ricard μιλάει για την ευτυχία

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meditators, without trying to stop it, but simply by being completely open,thinking that thatbang is just going to be just a small event like a shooting star, they are able not to move at all.So the whole point of that is not, sort of, to make, like, a circus thing of showing exceptionalbeings who can jump, or whatever. It's more to say that mind training matters. That this is not

just a luxury. This is not a supplementary vitamin for the soul. This is something that's goingto determine the quality of every instant of our lives. We are ready to spend 15 years

achieving education. We love to do jogging, fitness. We do all kinds of things to remainbeautiful. Yet, we spend surprisingly little time taking care of what matters most -- the way ourmind functions -- which, again, is the ultimate thing that determines the quality of ourexperience.Now, our compassion is supposed to be put in action. That's what we try to do in differentplaces. Just this one example is worth a lot of work. This lady with bone TB, left alone in atent, is going to die with her only daughter. One year later, how she is. Different schools andclinics we've been doing in Tibet.

And just, I leave you with the beauty of those looks that tells more about happiness than Icould ever say. And jumping monks of Tibet. (Laughter) Flying monks. Thank you very much.