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Why Meditate?

On the eve of the release of his new book, the French monk Matthieu Ricard spoke with Tricycle about science, meditation, and his title as “the happiest man in the world.”

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Mattieu Ricard
Before you were a monk, you were a scientist in cell genetics. How does science inform your perspective on meditation? The basis of science is a rigorous, empirical, and pragmatic approach to everything. A suitable theory has to include the possibility that it can be proven or disproved by fact. A theory that has a ready-made explanation for anything that could happen (like the theory of universal selfishness or psychoanalysis, to give just two examples) is not scientific. A theory should not be just an intellectual construct, but it has to be in tune with reality.

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