Who is the happiest man in the world? It is impossible to be sure who it is. However, a group of scientists at the University of Wisconsin has concluded that the happiest man in the world is a Buddhist monk named Matthieu Ricard, an advisor to the Dalai Lama.
These scientists, led by researcher Richard Davidson, assure that when studying Ricard’s brain, the brain activity associated with well-being that they recorded is the highest ever recorded and much higher than that of the control group. The control group is made up of people who have never meditated and is used to compare the data. By the way, those people were college students with an average age of 21.5 years. Therefore, in full physical and mental condition.
A scientist turned into a monk
Yes, the happiest man in the world is a scientist who more than 40 years ago gave up his professional career to walk the Buddhist path. From understanding the functioning of living beings at the cellular level to understanding them at the spiritual level.
Matthieu Ricard was a biologist and obtained his doctorate from the prestigious Pasteur Institute in 1972. But he decided to live the Tibetan Buddhist teachings and went to the Himalayas, where he learned from great teachers like Rinpoche.
He has been there ever since, except to give some lectures on Happiness and other similar trips to spread his lifestyle.
Meditation works
What Matthieu Ricard disseminates in these talks is mainly that meditation works to achieve states of well-being and constant happiness. He invites us all to try it for 10 minutes, several days in a row, to see if it is true that you can feel better. Once you experience it in the first person, you are more likely to decide to continue with this great practice.
Ricard, the happiest man in the world, tells us that the more we practice, the higher the level of consciousness we reach. And that level of consciousness will allow us to live happier because we will have more open eyes, and also a fuller heart.
Not only Ricard participated in the study at the University of Wisconsin. Other colleagues of his collaborated and it could be seen in the results that there was a correlation between years of practice and well-being. The one who had been meditating the longest was Ricard and he obtained the highest values, hence he was called the happiest man in the world.
Either positive or negative
Matthieu Ricard recommends that we reflect on how our mind works to control it and fill it with positive thoughts, which will bring positive emotions. He tells us that the mind can only focus on one thing, so if you want negative thoughts not to affect you, you have to fill them with positive ones.
Either positive or negative, that’s the way of thinking at every moment. Knowing this, apply it in your daily life, and whenever you find yourself thinking about something bad, be aware that if you fill your mind with something good, there will be no more room for bad.
Where to find happiness
“Happiness has nothing to do with material goods, power, or beauty.” He is not the first to say so. To find out, the media does not have to give you the title of the happiest man in the world, not even if it is with the objective argument that it is a scientific study.
But we like what it says below:
“Happiness is a hidden treasure in the depths of each person”
