HAPPIEST MAN IN THE WORLD

Who is the happiest man in the world? If you Google it, the name "Matthieu Ricard" pops up.

Matthieu Ricard, 69, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk originally from France who has been called "the world's happiest man."

That's because he participated in a 12-year brain study on meditation and compassion led by a neuroscientist from the University of Wisconsin, Richard Davidson.

Davidson hooked up Ricard's head to 256 sensors and found that when Ricard was meditating on compassion, his mind was unusually light.

 Ricard — who says he sometimes meditates for entire days without getting bored — admits he's a generally happy person (although he feels his "happiest man" title is a media-driven overstatement). 

He spoke with Business Insider at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Here's his advice for how to be happy.

To Ricard, the answer comes down to altruism. The reason is because thinking about yourself, and how to make things better for yourself all the time, is exhausting, stressful, and ultimately leads to unhappiness.

"It's not the moral ground," Ricard explained. "It's simply that me, me, me all day long is very stuffy. And it's quite miserable, because you instrumentalize the whole world as a threat, or as a potential sort of interest [to yourself]."

If you want to be happy, Ricard says you should strive to be "benevolent," which will not only make you feel better, but it will also make others like you better.

                        - Independent