120 GQ.COM.AU FEBRUARY 2017
Ricardspokewithanaccentthattook
amomenttogetusedto.Hesaidthisarea
wasalsoahotspotformouses,“bigmouses”.
Tigers,leopards,and...BigMouses.That
seemed particularly terrifying. One of the
Big Mouses, “the Commander”, Ricard
called him, lived nearby, and could be seen
huddledonthemountaintopfromtimeto
time.There’dbeenasecretmeetingwith
theChinese,atthatmonasteryonthehill.
IwastryingtoimaginethatBigMouse,so
twitchyandwhiskeredtheycalledhimthe
Commander, “meeting with the Chinese”,
when it occurred to me: Maoist. Not mouse.
Adecadeearlier,thisregionhadbeenfilled
with uprising and machine-gun fire. “It was
quitescary,”saidRicard.“Butnotasscaryas
thetigersandleopards.Imusttellyou,when
youheartheanimalsoutwalkingatnight,
you go, like, Eeeeeeeeee.” He seemed to see
itonmyface–aflickerofworry.
Oneofhismostrecentbooks,calledAPlea
for the Animals,isaboutvegetarianismand
“the50billionlandanimalsandtwotrillion
seaanimals”killedeachyear.“It’snotthe
righttimetobeeatenbyatiger,”hesaid,
scrunching his face, to laughter from the rest
ofus.“Badpublicityforthebook.Thisisa
placeofcompassionandeveryone’sgoing
tosaythattigersdon’treciprocate.”
This monk guy was funny, too. The man-
crush was instant.
Thewordshe’dwrittenrangsotrue:“The
searchforhappinessisnotaboutlookingat
life through rose-coloured glasses or blinding
oneselftothepainandimperfectionsofthe
world... It is the purging of mental toxins,
such as hatred and obsession, that literally
poison the mind.”
So began the novitiate’s lesson.
Whenyoumeetamonkonhis
mountaintop, it’s like taking a drug
called Tonsured Tangerine Euphoria or
RainbowSaffronDreams.Whenyousee
theworldthroughhiseyes,everything
turnslovelycoloursandyousuddenly
findyourselfunencrusted–freeofyour
baggage–suddenlylovingeveryoneand
everything. It’s a self-manufactured rave
in your head. Talking to Ricard, who spoke
in fast-forward and was always on the
vergeoflaughter,waslikeplugginginto
a different hard drive, one packed with
aeonsofTibetanwisdommixedwithions
ofscientificinquiry.Hespokerepeatedly
about the keys to happiness: compassion
andaltruismand...brainplasticity.
ThisiswhereRicard,thescientist,
sought to tie down the abstractions of
Buddhismforamodernworldsteepedin
bigdata.Inthis,he’dbecomeakindof
bridge between the East and the West,religionandscience,optimismandsecular
cynicism.Whatmadehismessagemore
palatablewasthathehadn’temergedfrom
aTibetancaveatall.Hewasn’t disconnected
fromourmodernworld.
Yes, he was a monk, but that didn’t mean
he didn’t love to ski, or that he wasn’t a great
photographer, or that, back in his early years,
he hadn’t threatened to build a harpsichord,
thenpennedabookentitledThe Mystery
of Animal Migration.Itdidn’tmeanhe
wouldn’t occasionally drop the F-bomb.
Inconversation,hereferredtoSupreme
Court justice Stephen Breyer, quoted the
latest study from the London School of
Economics,frettedovergunsinAmerica
andglobalwarmingwhilecitingthework
ofGusSpeth,dissedAynRandandFreud,
andreferencedKafka(“Warisamonstrous
failureofimagination”),Kant,andthe
psychologistPaulEkmanwhilesprinkling
insomeoftheTibetanmastersaswell.
He told me, “If Donald Trump were more
of a rainbow, we’d all be in less trouble.”
Andthensaidhedisapprovedof“self-help”.
“It’sanarcissisticgame,”hesaid.Forhim,
itallboileddowntoonequestion– how
am I supposed to live my life?
We took carved steps, rising higher
abovemyhut,passingseveralhabitations,
modest abodes like mine, following a line
of prayer flags until we came over the lip
ofthemountainwhereabreezewasmoving
the needles of the larches. Ricard said thatsometimeshecouldhearthemonkslaughing
down below at dinnertime, when they joined
one another to eat. There were about a dozen
ofthem,inacordoned-offarea,observing
retreatsthatcouldlastuptosevenyears.
Nowwecameuponthehermitageof
Dagpo,achunkymonkwithaYoda-like
voice, whose laugh was deep and raucous.
(Itshouldbenoted,lestthedescriptorbegin
to feel like a cliché, that laughter was an
artformamongthemonks.Itcameoften,
asareportofhappiness,asawillingness
tobehappy,amanifestationofjoy.Butit
wasmore.Forthem,itpossessedahundred
varieties and articulations, and they had an
expression of laughter for each situation.)
Dagpohadbeenatthisretreatforseven
years.Hehadn’tleftthisplaceinsevenyears,
eachdaychargedwiththesametask–editing
andcollatingacollectionofancientTibetan
texts. In his workspace were the pillows on
whichhesatandalowtablewithacanted
book holder upon it. Scattered nearby were
variouspensandhighlightersindifferent
fluorescentcolours,anextrapairofglasses,
asmartphoneandabigbottleofCoke.
The Tibetan book consisted of yellowed
pagesthesizeofgiantbookmarks,withsix
long lines of writing per page. Dagpo was
then perfecting the book – 70 volumes in
all–writingouthischangesinTibetanon
newbookmark-pages,afterwhichtheywould
be taken down to the Shechen monastery
andprinted.Hefelthehadaboutthree
months to go, but it was painstaking work.
Oftenhefoundhimselfhuntingfordaysin
searchofmeaningsforantiquatedwords.
He read other texts to inform his reading
ofthisone.Didheevergetfrustratedand
thinkthewholethingwasbullshit?
Notatall,hesaid.He’dlearntsomuch
fromthebook.Whatwouldhedoto
celebratewhenfinished?Helaughedwith
anuncomfortableshynessandsaidhehad
no idea. When asked what came next, he
saidthesame.Anewpathwouldeventually
makeitselfknown–whowashetoforceit?
Dagpo’slife’sworkclearlypointedout
thatintheWestwewereobsessedwith
utilitarian knowledge. Often stupid stuff.
Sometimes, in airports, I’d overhear
someonespeakingtechorsales,loudly
throwing around words like “units”
and “P2P packets”, bullying an assistant,
cajolingaclient.Ricardcalledthis
“instrumentalising”, or using people and
knowledgetoserveone’sownendrather
thanfiguringouthowwemightserveone
another, communally, which was another
meanstohappiness.Wastherelentless
need to produce, scale, monetise, be
evaluated and rewarded, a trap after all?BELOW: RICARD, PARTICIPATING IN A STUDY
THAT TESTED MONKS’ BRAIN ACTIVITY WHILE
THEY MEDITATED ON COMPASSION.