The Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

 

and
 
The Department of Psychiatry
The NYS Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University, College of P&S

 

present

 

 

A Conversation with Matthieu Ricard, Ph.D.

 

Shechen Monastery, Nepal

Board Member, The Mind and Life Institute

 

 

 

From Mind Training to Brain Plasticity:

Cultivating the inner conditions for Happiness

 

                                                                               

Wednesday May 17, 2006

4:00 pm to 5:30 pm

 

 

Location: New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Drive, 1st Floor Auditorium

 

(Enter Kolb Annex, 40 Haven Ave., turn rt., walk though atrium and across bridge over Riverside Dr. to new NYSPI, take elevator to 1st Fl.)
 

 

Matthieu Ricard, Ph.D. will speak about his new book, "Happiness: A Guide to Life's Most Important Skill", and related topics.  Much of the book is based on his longtime participation in the collaboration with the Mind and Life Institute of neuroscientists and practitioners of the Buddhist contemplative sciences.  These efforts have begun to tell us more about brain circuitry involved in affective states and responses, and how it may be possible to train people in self- affect regulation, making possible new therapeutic interventions for conditions such as depression.  These innovative neuroscience explorations are rooted in ancient Asian practices focused on achieving mental clarity, emotional balance and wisdom in life.

 

 (See over for speaker brief biography)

 

 

Matthieu Ricard, Ph.D.

 

 

 
Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk at Shechen Monastery in Nepal and the French interpreter for His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  Born in France in 1946, he received a Ph.D. in Cellular Genetics at the Institut Pasteur under Nobel Laureate Francois Jacob.  As a hobby, he wrote and photographed Animal Migrations (Hill and Wang, 1969).  He first traveled to the Himalayas in 1967 and has lived there since 1972.  For fifteen years he studied with Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, one of the most eminent Tibetan teachers of our times. 




With his father, the French thinker Jean-François Revel, he is the author of The Monk and the Philosopher (Schocken, New York, 1999), and of The Quantum and the Lotus with the astrophysicist Trinh Xuan Thuan (Crown, New York, 2001).  He has translated several books from Tibetan into English and French.  As a photographer, he has published several photography books, including The Spirit of Tibet (Aperture, New York) and Buddhist Himalayas (Abrams, New York).
 
Matthieu Ricard is a member of the Mind and Life Institute network of neuroscience investigators and contemplatives.
 
 
Websites: www.mindandlife.org, http://www.shechen.org/sub_teachers_mr.html
 
 
 
Selected publications:
 

 

 
Lutz A, Greischar LL, Rawlings NB, Ricard M, Davidson RJ.  Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Nov 16;101(46):16369-73. Epub 2004 Nov 8.
 
Ricard M, Thuan TX. The Quantum and the Lotus.  New York: Crown, 2001.



Revel J-F, Ricard M. The Monk and the Philosopher.  New York: Schocken, 1999.