To accompany the release of his book Lumière, published by Éditions Allary, Matthieu Ricard is offering a series of blogs on photography. An invitation to share wonder, celebrate the beauty of the world, and continue the quest for light that has guided him throughout his sixty-year journey. This final article concludes this inspiring series.
Blend into the immensity of the sky, lose yourself in the maze of bark, disappear into the intimacy of a flower. Wonderment revels in the crisp mountain air, the scents of a pine forest, the fragrance of a meadow after the rain. The melodious call of a thrush, the softness of moss, the fine sand that slips through your fingers, the golden taste of a mandarin orange, the freshness and lightness of a snowflake resting in the palm of your hand, the smile of a child. ‘Above all,’ wrote Eliot Porter, “a work of art is a creation of love… Love is the fundamental necessity that underlies the need to create, that underlies the emotion that gives it form.”
In my hermitage in Nepal, at the very first light of dawn, the stars are still visible. The Himalayan range stands out against a blue-grey sky. The mountains turn crimson pink, then comes the moment when the first peak, over eight thousand metres high, catches the rays of the rising sun and bursts into a blazing orange. Very quickly, the entire range lights up, then the low light illuminates the sea of clouds that spreads out at the foot of the mountains, covering the valleys that will remain shrouded in mist for another hour. I embrace the majesty of the Himalayas, which stretch out before my eyes for over two hundred kilometres. The immensity and ever-changing light of this sublime landscape permeate my being like nectar. The silence is perfect. I remain there, breathing in the pure air, letting my gaze melt into the immensity of space and the landscape that shines through the blue veil that blurs the boundary between sky and earth. I let my mind rest in simplicity, in the calm of the natural state that becomes clear when the mind ceases to be clouded by incessant mental fabrications. I savour a delicious freedom that I would not trade for anything in the world.
You can find this entire photographic project in Lumière, published by Éditions Allary.
Matthieu Ricard donates all of his income—royalties from his books, photographs, and lectures—to development projects run by the Karuna-Shechen association, which works to reduce poverty and empower the most vulnerable women, men, and children. In this way, every reader becomes a direct contributor to solidarity through their purchase.