Exploring the mind

"MAY I be a guard for those who are protectorless, a guide for those who journey on the road. For those who wish to go across the water, may I be a boat, a raft, a bridge." As he recited this ancient verse, near the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya last December, the Dalai Lama was moved to tears. He stopped and waited silently, unassumingly, until able to speak again wrote Matthieu Ricard, a monk, scholar and activist.

This monk is one among millions of people who are guided by this longing for deep harmony and compassion. Is this inner quest the best way to help one's fellow-beings? Or is it not better to devote one's energies to solving the many material causes of suffering in this world?

Matthieu Ricard's unique journey is in itself an answer to these questions. Yet this is not merely an individual's life story. It is a confluence of energies that feed an eternal creative quest. It is also a continuation of the centuries-old dialogue between the West and the East.

Matthieu was born in France in 1946 and grew up steeped in Western scientific culture at the highest level. He wrote a brilliant Ph.D. thesis in molecular biology and worked in the team of a Nobel Prize winning biologist. But, by the time he reached the post-graduate level, Matthieu had realised that while science was very interesting it wasn't enough to give meaning to his life. Instead he was much more drawn to the contemplative science of a spiritual life.

At just about that time he saw a series of films about Tibetan Buddhist lamas who had escaped after the Chinese occupation of their country and settled in India, Nepal and Bhutan. "I had the impression of seeing living beings who were the very image of what they taught...I said to myself, if it's possible to reach perfection as a human being, that must be it."

So Matthieu made several trips to India and became the disciple of Kangyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist lama, who was then living in Darjeeling. On completing his Ph.D. in 1972 he gave up his scientific career and moved permanently to India. For most of his peers in France and his father, who is a well-known philosopher and writer, this choice was baffling - even distressing. How could such a brilliant young man give up the chance to make great scientific discoveries and instead adopt a life of prayer and meditation?

Today, almost 30 years later, Matthieu is a monk, a highly respected scholar of Tibetan Buddhist texts and the Dalai Lama's French translator. A few years ago, at the request of several common friends, he engaged in a wide ranging dialogue with his father - Jean-Francois Revel. The result is The Monk and the Philosopher: East Meets West in a Father-Son Dialogue (Thorsons, 1998) a book-length conversation which partly captures Matthieu's journey and has been described as an intellectual banquet.

With the philosopher-father asking most of the questions and monk-son answering, this conversation traverses a vast terrain. What is consciousness? What is the nature of the mind? Who or what is this I? For example, Jean-Francois posits the view of all materialist philosophies, and much of modern neurophysiology, which reduces consciousness to an amalgam of material, chemical reactions and biological structures. Various Eastern traditions of meditation and yoga know this to be a false view. Matthieu relates several of his own experiences, and stories about great lamas, which contradict the materialist view. But how can this be proved and verified, challenges Jean-Francois?

To which Matthieu can only say that the same experience and realisation is attainable by anyone who works hard for it: Observation of the nature of the mind, from a purely contemplative point of view, can bring about a certainty just as complete as observing a body falling under the effect of gravity.

Jean Francois' primary focus in this dialogue is to understand different facets of Buddhism and thus unravel how and why it now evokes so much interest in the West. This question has many answers. Partly they relate to the power of Buddhism as a science of the mind. But perhaps the more important dimension of Buddhism's appeal is its emphasis on inner harmony and thus compassion.

Thus, the theme of acting on oneself and acting on the world takes up an entire chapter and is virtually a linking thread running through the dialogue. As Jean-Francois asks: Buddhism may be one way of escaping from suffering, but hasn't the West found another way of doing the same, by transforming the outer world and human societies?

Matthieu replies that improvement of material conditions is a necessary but not sufficient factor in the journey of life, for transforming the outer world has its limits...(because) to act on the world without having transformed oneself can't lead to either lasting or profound happiness.

True, concedes Jean-Francois, that a wise Lama can influence the few who come in contact with him but what is the value of this compared to transforming the world by knowledge of its laws. He then refers to many of the life-transforming inventions of modern science and technology - such as the steam engine, telescope, microscope, vaccines etc. In the last 30 years that Matthieu has spent in monasteries, molecular biology has made startling advances which help to improve human life and Jean-Francois gropes to see if Matthieu has any regrets about not taking part in these discoveries.

"Biology seems to have been doing fine without me," answers Matthieu. "The real question for me was to establish an order of priorities in my life. Increasingly, I had the feeling that I wasn't using the potential of human life as well as I could, but that day by day I was letting my life slip away. For me, the mass of scientific knowledge had become a major contribution to minor needs."

Naturally, Jean-Francois is aghast at such a light dismissal of several centuries of scientific achievement. Curing diseases, living longer, traveling long distances at high speed instead of having to trudge through mud for weeks - these are not minor needs.

Matthieu is quick to clarify and agree that there is an inherent value in material progress that alleviates suffering. But better medicines and living longer are not an end in themselves: If spiritual values stop being an inspiration for a society, material progress becomes a sort of facade that masks the pointlessness of life. Of course, to live longer is to profit from an increased opportunity of giving meaning to life. But without a depth of meaning well just run the risk of having to live out 200 years of depression, or 300 years of bad moods.

Instead, one can aspire to plunge to the deepest realms of the inner journey and, perhaps, attain to the state described thus by the seventh-century master Shantideva:

"Look at my delighted laughter! The delight of a vast, free mind! The experience of lightness of being As when emerging from a narrow gorge Onto a high, wide mountain pass! Look how, free from mistaking things as real, I am blissful, and yet more blissful, Enjoying the realm of primordial wakefulness!" Such a wakeful mind can be a powerful instrument for many needs of the material, social, political dimension.

For example, many Buddhist monks are today also intensively engaged in struggles for justice, including the movement to free Tibet. Matthieu himself is a passionate proponent of this cause. In 1998 he wrote a letter to Kofi Anan, the Secretary General of the United Nations saying: If the Declaration of Human Rights is universal, please don't exclude Tibet. "If it is not universal, just say so". He urged the UN to take concrete action on the issue of Tibet for "...comforting words to a dying nation are but a meager sustenance." Today, more and more social-political activists are seeking to anchor themselves in spiritual strengths. But for many the external transformative agenda remains predominant. Giving full priority to the inner journey is often seen as risky - for it may take one away from the task of improving life in the here and now. Here, perhaps, is one answer to such doubts. As Matthieu puts it: "You could say that action on the world is desirable, while inner transformation is indispensable."

RAJNI BAKSHI

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