Product Description
Jean Francois-Revel, a pillar of French intellectual life in our time, became world famous for his challenges to both Communism and Christianity. Twenty-seven years ago, his son, Matthieu Ricard, gave up a promising career as a scientist to study Tibetan Buddhism -- not as a detached observer but by immersing himself in its practice under the guidance of its greatest living masters.

Meeting in an inn overlooking Katmandu, these two profoundly thoughtful men explored the questions that have occupied humankind throughout its history. Does life have meaning? What is consciousness? Is man free? What is the value of scientific and material progress? Why is there suffering, war, and hatred? Their conversation is not merely abstract: they ask each other questions about ethics, rights, and responsibilities, about knowledge and belief, and they discuss frankly the differences in the way each has tried to make sense of his life.

Utterly absorbing, inspiring, and accessible, this remarkable dialogue engages East with West, ideas with life, and science with the humanities, providing wisdom on how to enrich the way we live our lives.

Amazon.com Review
The Monk and the Philosopher is a collection of father-son dialogues between Jean-François Revel, a French philosopher and journalist famous for his leadership in protests of both Christianity and Communism, and Matthieu Ricard, his son, who gave up a promising career as a scientist to become a Buddhist monk in the Himalayas. The conversations recorded in this book took place during 10 days at an inn in Katmandu. The range of their subjects is immense: What is Buddhism? Why does it have such appeal to many in the West? Why do Buddhists believe in reincarnation? What are the differences between Buddhist and Christian monastic life? How do science and individualism make authentic Buddhist practice difficult for Westerners to achieve? Despite the simplicity of many of these questions, Revel and Ricard never give simplistic answers. Their discussions are rich without being dense, and, even more notably, they take every question very personally. The result is a book perfectly suited as an introduction to the elements of Buddhist religion (with a good bit of Tibetan history thrown in) that is also an excellent description of what it has been like for one man (Ricard) to practice Buddhist faith. However, as Ricard wisely notes at the end of this book, "No dialogue, however enlightening it might be, could ever be a substitute for the silence of personal experience, so indispensable for an understanding of how things really are." The greatest strength of The Monk and the Philosopher may be its power to return readers to careful attention to the way we pass our days. --Michael Joseph Gross

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 28 reviews)

The Monk and the Philosopher

The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life The book was wonderful. It gave each persons point of view in detail to enable you to take anything you wish from the discussion.
May 08, 2008

Two enriching perspectives

This is a wonderful and beautiful book. Wonderful because, as the Dalai Lama writes on the cover, "it shows how fruitful open-hearted dialogue can be." And beautiful because such dialogue happens to be between father and son, two very bright minds who look at the world from quite different perspectives. From the time of the Buddha up to now there have been hundreds of monks and holy men -religious scholars- abstractly describing the ecstatic and "samadhic" experience. More recently, neurologists -science scholars- are "painting" somebody else's experience (that of monks and nuns) using imaging technology. But Mathieu Ricard Revel is one of the few who can actually speak simultaneously from both the experience and knowledge of the monk and the scientist. Reviewing this book would require many pages. However, I just one to highlight something that I considered particularly instructive (even though I disagree with the conclusion). Mathieu's metaphors of the tenth link of the dependent origination chain (from becoming to birth/rebirth), illustrating the phenomenon of "reincarnation" to his pragmatic father, are the most clarifying and explanatory I have ever read. Coming from an educated and eminent biologist, they have my deepest respect. Still, as I said, "rebirth" is the only notion of the basic Teachings of the Buddha which I do not share. (I personally consider "rebirth" a belief that does affect the extraordinary and elementary quality of the Buddha's Teachings).
November 03, 2007

Meaningful & Intellectually Provocative

The dialogue between Revel & Ricard are meaningful & intellectually provocative. Their open, critical & coherent discussion not merely enabled me to learn more about meaning of life, thru the lenses of both Western philosophy & Eastern Buddism, but also guided me to see things in a more lucid perspective. I look forward to exploring, learning, & experiencing more about the path to enlightenment introduced by Ricard.
September 02, 2007

Wonderful conversation on religion and philosophy

This is a father son conversation on religion and philosophy. It is a wonderful and enlightening look at Buddhism and rationality. What an extraordinary opportunity to explore the juxtaposition between a father and his rational philosophical beliefs and his son having grown up a westerner in a rational family and moving to the spiritual realm of Buddhism. His western lens is very helpful to understand this body of belief.

A must read if you are interested in a conversation that leads to understanding and learning that bridges the rational and the spiritual.
October 21, 2006

Fantastic

I really enjoyed this book at various levels. First of all, as an intellectual exchange of views between father and son, both of whom are obviously very knowledgeable in their fields of expertise. Most of the conversations between them took place in Nepal, and some in northern France. Secondly, I enjoyed it as a means to elucidate some points of Buddhist epistemology and metaphysics. Matthieu did a very good job as a spokesperson for Tibetan Buddhism. Thirdly, I enjoyed it because of what it made me aware of: views like those of Revel, an atheist and skeptical philosopher who stands in the ethical traditions of both Epicureism and Stoicism, are not enough to satisfy my spirit's quest for a comprehensive and organic view of life, since they are issued from a merely philosophical and scientist perspective.
Every time Matthieu made a good point, Revel's reply would be like : "Oh, this idea too was known in the Western philosophical tradition...So and so said the same thing..." It may well be true, but all of these views are part of the Buddhist organic, comprehensive tradition, the chief aim of which is to attain liberation from the illusion of the self, or enlightenment. Clearly Revel prefers a syncretistic approach to a straight forward, comprehensive one, like the Buddhist or the Christian paths.
This was obviously a conversation, not a debate, in which Matthieu would have won hands down. There are many unfavorable reference to Christianity, which makes me wonder if either one, especially Revel, has ever studied the Christian theological tradition.

June 03, 2006

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