I have finally managed to attend a Matthieu Ricard conference last night in Paris. The last time I had tried to do this I had arrived one hour earlier and the place had been filled three hours earlier. This time I went there early enough and got a perfect seat (about one meter away from him:) ).
It was fantastic. The theme of the conference was altruism and the way it could change us all individually and - thanks to that - the society we live in. I must say it was the first time I actually understood the whole point of it. He said that altruism, kindness, compassion are all states of mind (not just some abstract concept of feeling) and that just as one works to cultivate a physical skill, in the same manner one should devote time to the betterment of one's mind. Through this, we can "contaminate" others with our lack of anger and disarm them. This is also the way in which we can oppose the exacerbated individualism of our society which will eventually lead us to our own self-destruction (ex. environnement, wars - since you no longer see others as human beins but only as targets - etc).
He also said some things about why saying that meditation is a way of shutting yourself from others and reality and of being egocentric is nonsense. One practices meditation in order to stop being egocentric and the transformation is visible in everyday life (a great deal of scientific studies have meen made on this topic). Some person said that withdrawing from her family in order to meditate made her feel as if she was excluding the latter, to which he responded that in order to do anything one need some privacy: whether it's practicing the piano, writing a thesis, or training for some competition. He said that if alowing 20 minutes a day or say 45 in order to become better and be a wonderful human being during the 23:15 hours left , then it is no doubt worth the investment.
He also dedicated a book to me (and many others :) ) saying: "à Alina, que l'amour altruiste règne en votre cœur, Matthieu", which I thought to be (and still do) really beautiful.
7 comments:
OMG I AM SO JEALOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) glad you got to meet him - if I'm lucky this year, I'll get to meet a friend of his, on the scientific side ;)
Dearest!:))
I have actually recorded the talk and I would like to put it online, but I don't really know how to do that.. (it's in French though...)
Which friend of his are you talking about?
have you tried youtube? :) that's what most people use... :P I'm talking about Dr. Davidson, who is doing research on mindfulness/ meditation and the brain and has been involved in this dialogue for quite some time now.. :)
Matthieu's got a lot of friends:)
Oh I know Davidson! He's not bad at all!:)
how do you know him? :)
From Youtube:))) i've seen him in some documentaries on brain plasticity I think.
ehehehe for a while there I thought you actually knew-knew him :) yup, neuroplasticity sounds about right :)
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