Image by Pablo Subjuntivo Ver
In seeking happiness for others, you find it for yourself. – Anonymous
Knowing how busy everyone is, I usually only share Ted Talks that are no more than five or six minutes in length. But I then I came across this talk by Matthieu Ricard, the Dalai Lama’s right-hand man, and I decided that I’m limiting my sharing capabilities by simply assuming that you, dear reader, don’t have 21 minutes to spend watching a truly inspirational man talk about something that we could all do with a little more of.
Happiness.
Frequently described as the happiest man in the world, the French Buddhist monk obligingly underwent a barrage of intensive clinical tests at the University of Wisconsin to prove as much.
And there I thought all it took was a testimonial from a friend or colleague.
Ricard, who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal, says that mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time. “You could go from love to hate,” he explains, “but you cannot, at the same time — toward the same object, the same person — want to harm and want to do good.”
Rather than live a life based solely in science, Matthieu Ricard opted instead to combine the knowledge he’d acquired while training as a biochemist at the Institute Pasteur with his love of spirituality.
This resulted in him moving to the Himalayas to become a Buddhist monk — and to pursue happiness, both at a basic human level and as a subject of inquiry. He has since come to believe that achieving happiness requires the same kind of effort and mind training that any other serious pursuit involves.
Like I said, it’s only 21 minutes long. You could watch it while you’re eating your lunch. You know it’s bad for your digestion to work and eat right? Do this instead; I promise you’ll benefit more from this experience than you would if you mindlessly shoveled in your salad while working on those spreadsheets.
To happiness and beyond!
