Matthieu Ricard

Matthieu Ricard has lived in the Himalayan region as a buddhist monk for twenty years. Born in France in 1946, Mr. Ricard grew up in Paris, and earned his Ph.D. in cell genetics under the supervision of Nobel Laureate Francois Jacobs at the Institut Pasteur. In 1967, while doing postgraduate genetic research, Mr. Ricard traveled to India to pursue studies in Tibetan Buddhism. After completing his doctoral thesis in 1972, he moved to the East and became an attendant and disciple of the late Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, one of the most eminent Tibetan masters of our times, and teacher to the Dalai Lama. Mr. Ricard currently resides at Shechen Monastery in Nepal, and is the French interpreter to the Dalai Lama.
Mr. Ricard is an internationally respected author, translator, and photographer. He is author of The Monk and the Philosopher (Schocken: 1999), a dialogue with his father, Jean-Francois Revel, the French agnostic philosopher. It was a national bestseller in France, and has been translated into over twenty languages. He is also the author of Journey to Enlightenment: The Life and World of Khyentse Rinpoche (Aperture: 1996), a photo book of the life of Khyentse Rinpoche, as well as The Quantum and the Lotus (Crown: forthcoming, June 2001), a dialogue with the astrophysicist Trinh Xuan Thuan. Mr. Ricard is translator of numerous Tibetan texts, including The Heart Treasure (Shambhala: 1992) and The Life of Shabkar (Snow Lion: 2001). As a member of the Padmakara Translation Group, he has contributed to the translations of Words of My Perfect Teacher (Shambhala: 1998), and The Wish Fulfilling Jewel (Shambhala: 1999).

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