Notebooks of a Wandering Monk

Matthieu Ricard's memoir, Notebooks of a Wandering Monk, chronicles his journey toward inner freedom and compassion in action, inspired by Tibetan teacher Kangyur Rinpoche and other luminaries. Growing up in a intellectual and artistic family, Ricard gave up a promising career in genetics to pursue a meditative life in the Himalayas. He visited Tibet more than twenty times and published rare Tibetan texts and photographs. Elegantly translated by Jesse Browner and accompanied by photographs, the memoir inspires readers to live a meaningful and well-lived life.

Format: Hardback
Length: 720 pages
Publication date: 03 October 2023
Publisher: MIT Press Ltd

Matthieu Ricard's memoirs recount his extraordinary journey toward inner freedom and compassion in action. Born in Darjeeling, India, at the age of twenty-one, Ricard met Tibetan teacher Kangyur Rinpoche, who deeply impressed him 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.

Weight: 1170g
Dimension: 164 x 237 x 47 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780262048293