The character arc of Matthieu Ricard
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 15 February 1946 in Aix-les-Bains in Savoie, the son of a renowned French philosopher and a painter who later became a Tibetan Buddhist nun. Between then and now sit a childhood among French intellectual circles, a doctorate in molecular genetics at the Pasteur Institute in 1972 under a Nobel laureate, the decision to give up science at twenty six, years in the Himalayas studying with Tibetan teachers, a close friendship with his master until 1991, a humanitarian organisation co-founded in 2000, a national order of merit, and a place in the neuroscience of meditation. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Matthieu Ricard?
A doctorate under a Nobel laureate, and he gave it up at twenty six.
He was born in Savoie to two remarkable parents: his father was a well known French philosopher, his mother a painter who later became a Tibetan Buddhist nun herself. He grew up among the people and the arguments of French intellectual life, which is a good deal of pressure to be clever in a particular way.
He was clever in exactly that way. He worked for a doctorate in molecular genetics at the Pasteur Institute under Francois Jacob, a French Nobel laureate, and completed his thesis in 1972. Then, at twenty six, with the whole of a scientific career in front of him, he decided to forsake it and practise Tibetan Buddhism instead.
He went to India and lived in the Himalayas, studying with Kangyur Rinpoche and others, and became a close student and friend of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche until that teacher's death in 1991. Since then he has spent his working life carrying out his teacher's intentions. He lives at a monastery in Nepal. Since 1989 he has acted as a French interpreter for the Dalai Lama.
In 2000 he co-founded Karuna-Shechen, a humanitarian organisation running projects in the Himalayan region, for which France gave him its National Order of Merit. He is also a board member of an institute that brings scientists and contemplatives together, and he went back to the laboratory in a way nobody expected: as a subject. He volunteered for brain studies of long term meditators and co-authored research on them, including on himself.
One of those studies produced a headline he has been stuck with ever since, that he is the happiest person in the world. He scored well above the average of hundreds of volunteers. He has called the label absurd and untrue, which is the most convincing evidence for it anybody has produced.
The moments
Matthieu Ricard's timeline.
The 1960s
A childhood among ideas
Everyday. A philosopher for a father, a painter for a mother, and arguments at dinner.
The 1970s
A doctorate at the Pasteur
Milestone, and it changed everything. Molecular genetics, at the Pasteur, supervised by a Nobel laureate.
Take the laboratory, or go
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: go to the Himalayas, taken, or take the science career. He has lived in the Himalayas since, and eventually brought the science back in as a subject.
He gives up science
Milestone, and it changed everything. Twenty six years old, thesis in hand, and he put it down.
The Himalayas
Milestone, and it changed everything. A laboratory in Paris exchanged for a room in the mountains.
The 1980s
His teacher
Milestone, and it changed everything. Eighteen years beside one teacher, and the rest of his life carrying it on.
The French interpreter
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Thirty five years of standing beside somebody and saying it again in French.
The 1990s
His teacher dies
Setback, and it changed everything. The man he had followed for eighteen years, gone.
A book with his father
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A monk and a philosopher, arguing in print, as father and son.
The 2000s
Karuna-Shechen
Milestone, and it changed everything. Thirty years of projects across the region he had made his home.
A subject, not a scientist
Milestone, and it changed everything. The scientist who quit came back with his own head in the scanner.
A label he rejects
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Told he was the happiest man alive, he said that was nonsense.
The 2010s
Scientists and contemplatives
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Putting the two halves of his own life in the same room.
He is still at the monastery, still translating, still taking photographs of the mountains. What he set moving runs in two directions at once: clinics and schools across the Himalayan region, and a body of hard neuroscience on what decades of practice do to a brain, built partly out of scans of his own.
Your turn
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His had a Nobel laureate's laboratory in it, and he walked out at twenty six. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
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Sources
- Matthieu Ricard, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- Pasteur Institute records for his 1972 doctorate under Francois Jacob.
- University of Wisconsin Madison studies on long term meditators, which he volunteered for and co-authored.
- Karuna-Shechen records for its founding in 2000.