Matthieu Ricard was born in France in 1946 and son of French philosopher Jean-Francois Revel and painter Yahne Le Toumelin is a Buddhist monk, author of books, translator and photographer. After a first trip to India in 1967 where he met the great Tibetan spiritual masters, he completed his Ph.D. in cellular genetics in 1972 and then went to live permanently in the Himalayan region where he lives now for over 40 years. Matthieu Ricard is the author of several books, and is also an active member of the Mind and Life Institute, an organization that seeks to deepen scientific understanding of how the mind in order to reduce the inner suffering.
