Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

296 Pages·2006·2.83 MB·English

by  Matthieu Ricard

Acclaim for Matthieu Ricard's

Happiness

A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

"With compassion, incisive logic, and infectious good humor,
Matthieu Ricard exposes the false and limited assumptions we
have about our potential as human beings and shows us that
true and lasting happiness is not only possible, it is our birth-
right. This is a remarkable book from one of our wisest and
most trustworthy spiritual friends."
- Richard Gere

"You may not find happiness in a book, but if reading a book
can precipitate a tectonic shift in your life and mind toward ro-
bust, genuine, deeply rooted happiness, this would be the book. "
- Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Coming to Our Senses

"Clearly, Ricard is someone who knows what it takes - and
doesn't take - to be happy, and in his new book, he offers sage
advice on the subject. More than a self-help book or guide,
Happiness is an extended meditation on the 'way of being' that
engenders happiness. Even Ricard's definition of the term - 'a
deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally
healthy mind' - is enough to induce transformation. Ricard's
elegant prose and spiritual authority make Happiness the most
worthwhile rendering of the subject since the Dalai Lama's
now-classic 1998 book, The Art of Happiness."
- Phil Catalfo, Yoga Journal

"In his new book Happiness Matthieu Ricard combines the tal-
ents of philosopher and scientist to produce a rigorous and
compelling analysis of his subject. He reminds us that to
change the individual is also, ultimately, to change the world."
- George Soros

"Matthieu Ricard unlocks the keys to happiness with a clar-
ity, a wisdom, a beautiful spirit, and a sense of calm that are
themselves the proof of the program for clearer living he out-
lines with such radiant (such rigorous) simplicity. To read him
is to be, for a while, in his hermitage amidst the Himalayas,
looking at the world as it really is, but with a warm and trans-
formative sense of possibility. "
- Pico Iyer, author of The Global Soul

"If you want to be happier and better, this is the book you
should read. It combines Buddhist wisdom with modern psy-
chology to provide the best available philosophy of life and
practice for the twenty-first century. Do the exercises and you
will be more at peace."
- Professor Richard Layard, London School of Economics,
author of Happiness: Lessons from a New Science

"This enlightening volume is filled with helpful insights into the
way our minds and emotions work, two key aspects in Ricard's
guide to the development of this crucial skill. ... Hitting high
stride in the closing chapters, Ricard discusses the connections
between happiness, kindness, humility, optimism, going with the
flow of time, and facing death with equanimity."
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice

"The readers of this book will find themselves in the presence
of an extraordinary human being, one who is equally at home
in the culture and science of the West and in the poetry and wis-
dom of Tibetan Buddhism, and who has made a clear choice.
Ricard's compelling personal story beautifully illustrates his
message that happiness is to be found in controlling the mind,
not circumstances."
- Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University,
winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, 2002

"Ricard's advice is simple, yet wise. If you want to be happy,
slow down, look within, and try helping others find a little
happiness .... Happiness is a user-friendly, finely written intro-
duction to the Buddhist path."
- Don Lattin, San Francisco Chronicle

"In this highly readable and enlightening volume, Matthieu
Ricard offers us the keys to opening up the chambers of the
mind where serenity resides. His elegant descriptions show us
how the preoccupation with the self leads to the detrimental
urges, thoughts, and feelings that present barriers to genuine
liberation. "
- Aaron Beck, MD, author of Cognitive
Therapy and the Emotional Disorders

"Writing with grace and clarity, Ricard offers exciting ideas and
practical tools for increasing our understanding of ourselves
and our relationship to the world."
- Paul Ekman, PhD, author of Emotions Revealed

ALSO BY MATTHIEU RICARD

The Monk and the Philosopher (withJean-Fran~ois Revel)

The Quantum and the Lotus (with Trinh Xuan Thuan)

B u ddh is t Himalayas (with Olivier and Danielle Follmi)

Journey to Enlightenment

Monk Dancers of Tibet

Tibet: A Compassionate Eye

Happiness

A Guide to Developing Life's
Most Important Skill

Matthieu Ricard

TRANSLATED BY JESSE BROWNER

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
New York Boston London

Copyright © 2003, Nil editions, Paris
Translation copyright © 2006 by Jesse Browner

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.

little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10169
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com

First English-language edition published in hardcover by
little, Brown and Company, April 2006
First little, Brown paperback edition, January 2007

First published in France by Nil editions, part of Les Editions Robert laHont,
as Plaidoyer pour le bonheur, 2003

Copyright acknowledgments appear on page 283.

library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ricard, Matthieu.
[Plaidoyer pour Ie bonheur. English]
Happiness: a guide to developing life's most important skill / Matthieu Ricard;
translated by Jesse Browner -
1st English ed.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.
HC ISBN 0-316-05783-5 / 978-0-316-05783-7
PB ISBN 0-316-16725-8 / 978-0-316-16725-3
1. Religious life - Buddhism. 2. Happiness -
Religious aspects -
Buddhism.

I. Tide.
BQ4304.R5313 2006
294.3'444 - dc22
2005028480

10 9 8 7 6 5

Q-FF
Book design by Renato Stanisic
Printed in the United States of America

To Jigme Khyentse Rinpoche

Contents

Foreword xiii

Introduction 3

1. Talking About Happiness 17

2. Is Happiness the Purpose of Life? 26

3. A Two-Way Mirror: Looking Within, Looking Without 33

4. False Friends 40

5. Is Happiness Possible? 49

6. The Alchemy of Suffering 59

7. The Veils of the Ego 80

8. When Our Thoughts Become Our Worst Enemies 97

9. The River of Emotion 108

10. Disturbing Emotions: The Remedies 120

11. Desire 137

12. Hatred 146

13. Envy 157

14. The Great Leap to Freedom 160

15. A Sociology of Happiness 169

16. Happiness in the Lab 186

17. Happiness and Altruism: Does Happiness Make Us Kind

or Does Being Kind Make Us Happy? 202

18. Happiness and Humility 211

19. Optimism, Pessimism, and NaIvete 215

20. Golden Time, Leaden Time, Wasted Time 227

21. One with the Flow of Time 233

22. Ethics as the Science of Happiness 239

23. Happiness in the Presence of Death 253

24. A Path 258

Acknowledgments 267

Notes 269

Happiness does not come automatically. It is not a gift that
good fortune bestows upon us and a reversal of fortune takes
back. It depends on us alone. One does not become happy
overnight, but with patient labor, day after day. Happiness is
constructed, and that requires effort and time. In order to
become happy, we have to learn how to change ourselves.

LUCA AND FRANCESCO CAVALLI-SFORZA

FOREWORD

T
he first time I met Matthieu Ricard he was huddled over a
computer monitor in a back room of Shechen Monastery
in Kathmandu, Nepal. Matthieu was overseeing a group of
monks who were laboriously copying texts word by word
from the traditional long rectangles of woodblock-printed
pages, typing them into a computer program with a specially
designed Tibetan font.
What had been tall stacks of yellowing handmade paper be-
tween hand-carved covers was now stored digitally, in an elec-
tronic space the size of the palm of a hand. The digital age had
entered the monastery. Now anyone with computer access
could tap into texts that for centuries had only been found
stored away in hermitages and monasteries in the high, hidden
valleys of Tibet. Matthieu was helping to preserve for the mod-
ern world wisdom from the ancient.

Matthieu seems the perfect candidate for that task. His
background includes one of the finest educations the modern
world can offer. He holds a doctorate in biology from the pres-
tigious Pasteur Institute, where his main adviser was a Nobel
laureate. And yet he has spent more than a quarter century as a

FOREWORD

Buddhist monk in the Himalayas, learning from some of the
most fully realized Tibetan teachers of our day.
More recently I've worked with Matthieu as part of the
Mind and Life Institute, which brings scientists together in di-
alogue with Buddhist scholars. That ongoing conversation has
resulted in remarkable findings that show how meditation can
reshape the brain, strengthening the centers that undergird
good feelings and compassion.
Here Matthieu speaks with unparalleled authority. I wit-
nessed him work in collaboration with Professor Richard J.
Davidson, head of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as they prepared to
pilot a series of brain tests that would be used with advanced
meditators. Matthieu was both a key collaborator in consider-
ing what measures would make the most sense, and the first ex-
perimental subject.
For the first tests, Matthieu lay within the noisy maws of a
magnetic resonance imager (MRI), the diagnostic imaging de-
vice that uses huge magnets that whirl around a person's body
as he or she lies within the machine. The MRI offers a precise
image of a person's brain (or other internal tissues), but it is also
an ordeal for many people, some of whom panic at being
trapped inside the monstrous machine. Matthieu endured his
captivity for more than three hours while going through the
paces of several kinds of meditation: concentration, visualiza-
tion, and compassion.
At the end of that grueling session, we rushed into the
room to see how Matthieu had held up, slightly apprehensive
about the effects of his ordeal. But Matthieu emerged from the
machine smiling. His comment: "That was like a mini retreat! "
That reaction to what most people would find overwhelm-
ing bespeaks a special state of mind, a capacity for confronting

XIV

FOREWORD

life's ups and downs with equanimity, even joy. And Matthieu,
I realize, has that joie de vivre in full measure.
The psychoanalyst C. G. Jung once described the role of a
"Gnostic intermediary" as someone who himself plunges into
spiritual depths and emerges to bring the vision of that inner
possibility to the rest of us. Matthieu fills that role.
Beyond his well-cultivated temperament, Matthieu brings
a quiet brilliance and always quick mind. I've witnessed him in
sessions of the Mind and Life meetings, where the Dalai Lama
. explores in depth a scientific topic with a panel of scientific
experts. Matthieu often represents the Buddhist perspective,
speaking with a fluid intelligence that easily weaves together
spiritual and scientific paradigms.
In Happiness he draws on both his ease in the world of scien-
tific studies and philosophy and his intimate familiarity with the
wisdom traditions of Buddhism, bringing these streams together
in a seamless offering. The resulting insights are both inspiring
and pragmatic. The vision of happiness conjured here challenges
our everyday notions of joy, making a convincing argument for
contentment over collecting "good times," for altruism over self-
centered satiation. And beyond that, Matthieu suggests how we
can all cultivate the very capacity for such happiness.
On the other hand, Matthieu offers no quick fixes, for he
knows well that training the mind takes effort and time. Instead
he goes to the root of the mechanisms that underlie suffering
and happiness, offering refreshing insights into how the mind
functions ' and strategies for dealing with our most difficult
emotions. The result is a sound road map, one based on culti-
vating the conditions for genuine well-being.
A few days after my wife and I first met Matthieu, we hap-
pened to share some hours together in the Kathmandu airport,
waiting for endlessly delayed flights. Those hours sped by in

xv

FOREWORD

minutes due to the sheer pleasure of being in Matthieu's orbit.
He is without doubt one of the happiest people I know -
and
happiness is contagious. I wish the reader a similar contagion,
enjoying the pleasures to be found in these pages.

XVl

Daniel Goleman
Mendocino, California
October 2005