Well done. You've sorted through the embarrassment of riches that is the modern podcast landscape

and found me Rob Briden on my podcast. In this series of Briden and I talk to among

others Harry Hill, Ben Elton, Charlotte Church, Steve Cougan and Dame Harriet Walter.

And that's just a few. We tend to chat for about 45 minutes to an hour never longer.

It's terrific conversation, reminiscent where appropriate and exchange of anecdotes.

So do join me Rob Briden wherever you get your podcasts.

New episodes of Briden and are available early and ad free on Amazon Music or by subscribing

to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.

Our Panic is a new comedy podcast from Wondery that leans into our most absurd anxieties and

defuses them with humor and actual advice. Listen to Don't Panic on the Wondery app or

wherever you get your podcasts.

Our guest this week is Matture Ricard who's utterly fascinating. He is a French guy who

sometimes known as the happiest man alive. He got that name because he's one of these

meditative ad apps who took part in an early scientific experiment that looked at the

brains of meditators and the readings from his brain measurements were off the charts.

And so some reporter called him the happiest man alive and the name has stuck.

He is a molecular geneticist by training who abandoned his scientific career to become

a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Now he lives mainly in the Himalayas and he's written a bunch of

books that are incredibly interesting about meditation and also about altruism. His latest

book though is particularly challenging to me as a guy who likes to eat cheeseburgers.

It's called Aplee for the Animals, the Moral Philosophical and Evolutionary Imperative

to Treat All Beings with Compassion. I do eat cheeseburgers but I don't feel good about

...