What is the best way to react to a "super-ego"? The only answer it is to develop a different culture, a different mindset. Is this realistic? Violence has been decreasing for five centuries. Life in Europe has never been as safe as it is today. On a global level too, torture, slavery, wars and human rights violations are declining....

What was your new life like when you became a disciple? Kangyur Rinpoche taught me various practices: meditations, visualizations, reflection exercises on eternity, death, the value of life. He advised me to learn Tibetan. I first focused on the exercises and then on the language. I stayed with him until his death. My second teacher, Dil...

Buddhism is a training of the mind. Can you explain what this means? It is about abolishing the origin of suffering. What is the point of teaching if it doesn't bring relief? A lot of suffering is "mind-made", created in the head, in our thoughts. In meditation, we learn to recognize the feelings that cause it such as anger, pride or jea...

Until twelve thousand years ago, before humans had developed agriculture and animal husbandry, people lived in small hunter-gatherer societies that displayed equality, reciprocity, and cooperation between the sexes. A few thousand years later our world, and the place of women in society, had changed. One of the many challenges contemporary...

Kyabje Kangyur Rinpoche (1897-1975), one of the great Tibetan teachers of the twentieth century. Leaving aside a promising career in molecular biology, Matthieu Ricard chose instead to become a Buddhist monk and has never regretted it. French interpreter to the Dalai Lama, today he travels the world in an effort to bridge the gap between...

One day, as Patrul Rinpoche and a student close to his heart, Nyoshul Lungtok, were staying in retreat in the forest of Ari Dza, Patrul asked Lungtok, “Do you miss your mother?” “Not really,” Lungtok replied. “A-dzi!” said Patrul. “That’s what happens when you fail to cultivate compassion!” He continued, “Now go into that willow grove ov...

Patrul had decided to go to Kathok and gather merit by circumambulating the stupas at the Kathok Kumbum (the Hundred Thousand Images of Kathok). A few people noticed this shabby nomad lama stopping at each stupa, sticking his head inside, and saying a few words. Beyond that, there was nothing out of the ordinary about him. When he first ar...

This huge building is entirely made of flat stones engraved with mantras and prayers. Province of Myniak, Eastern Tibet. Photograph by Matthieu Ricard. Excerpts from The Enlightened Vagabond, the biography of the 19th century hermit and spiritual master Patrul Rinpoche. Patrul on Having Things Patrul often pointed out the uselessnes...