Matthieu Ricard is a Tibetan Buddhist monk and Dalai Lama associate who became globally renowned for his bestselling books and popular presentations on happiness.He (unwillingly) gained the title of "happiest man in the world" from the Western press due to the level of brain activity registered in a brain scan during his meditation.Ricard is also a skilled photographer, and his photos reveal a glimpse of what his life is like in the Himalayas of Nepal.His day includes meditation, charity, and time with his fellow monks.The life of a typical Tibetan Buddhist monk involves detachment from chaotic modernity, spent primarily in monasteries in the mountains. Matthieu Ricard is not a typical monk.Born in France in 1946 to prominent parents, his father a philosopher and his mother a painter, Ricard received his PhD in molecular genetics at the prestigious Pasteur Institute before dedicating his life to monkhood in the Himalayas. He studied under a series of masters before becoming a monk at age 30, and became the Dalai Lama's French translator in 1989.Ricard cowrote a book with his father in 1997, "The Monk and the Philosopher," primarily as a bonding experience with his aging parent, but it went on to become a surprise bestseller in France. And once the media took notice of Ricard, he reluctantly became a kind of celebrity.The Western media also proclaimed him "the happiest man alive," a title Ricard has unsuccessfully tried to shed, after his brain's gamma waves were recorded as the strongest among fellow monks in a University of Wisconsin study on meditation in 2000.Following the lead of the Dalai Lama, Ricard decided to use a media spotlight to promote lessons on honing happiness and altruism, and any of his share of the proceeds from his work goes toward his nonprofit, Karuna-Shechen.Depending on the year, Ricard may spend most of his time abroad either at other monasteries or speaking to an audience at an organization like TED, Google, or the United Nations, but his true home is at the Shechen Monastery in Nepal.We spoke to Ricard about his life for an episode of Business Insider's podcast "Success! How I Did It," ahead of the release of his latest book, "Beyond the Self." And a representative of Karuna-Shechen sent us a collection of Ricard's photography (he's a sophisticated photographer) that we combined with some other images to give an idea of what a typical spring day in the life in Nepal is like for him. Additional insights are drawn from his books "Happiness" and "Altruism."SEE ALSO:3 lessons I learned from the Tibetan monk who works with the Dalai Lama and went viral as 'the happiest man alive'DON'T MISS:The Buddhist monk who went viral as 'the happiest man in the world' says you can learn to meditate in 5 minutes at a timeRicard wakes at dawn, watching the sun rise over the mountains.He has a simple one-room home that contains only a couple robes, a small kitchen, and a patch of lawn in front. "Through simplicity we arrive at inner peace," he wrote.He told Michael Paterniti for a GQ profile that he has never allowed his home to be photographed because it remains his truest escape from the world.Ricard watches the people of the villages below, as well as the monks of Shechen Monastery, spring to life with the new day.If he has a year packed with presentations or events around the world, he may spend as little as a couple months in his home.But this year, he said, he will be foregoing intensive traveling to spend time in Nepal.He will venture out to nearby villages to visit schools that he constructed through his charity, Karuna-Shechen. He'll often bring his camera along.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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