The monk and the philosopher

Author: Matthieu Ricard - Jean Francois Revel

The father is an intellectual, a lay philosopher. The son, after his scientific studies, embarked on a spiritual journey in a Buddhist monastery. For the former the only faith is the exercise of reason, for the latter the only valid knowledge is that which leads to wisdom. In the quiet of a hermitage in Nepal, the two men question each other about the meaning of action, the power of the mind, the foundations of science, the mechanisms of happiness and pain, in search of a point of contact. between the need to give a rational basis to morality and that of reaching an intimate understanding of things.