The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Power of Meow (10 page)

“Get me the person in charge,” she ordered, her shrill voice carrying across the restaurant.

Kusali drew himself up to his full, imposing height. “I
am
the person in charge.”

“Then the owner.”

The subtlest motion of Kusali's head was all that was required for two waiters to manifest almost instantaneously at the table.

“Madam, I'm going to have to ask you to leave,” he said firmly.

“I'm staying right here till you bring me the owner.”

As more waiters approached and Kusali's expression turned to one of stern censure, the furious woman realized she was out of options.

“This place is disgusting!” Rising from her chair, she unleashed a stream of bitter invective about the restaurant, the staff, and the management. She saved her harshest words for cats, who she described as “vermin.”

Never had the Himalaya Book Café witnessed a tirade as poisonous. Nor a departure as threatening.

Turning at the front door to wag her index finger directly in Kusali's face, she screamed, “You haven't heard the last of this!”

A short while later I, too, left the Himalaya Book Café. Despite a very gracious apology from Kusali soon after the woman's departure—which he delivered along with a consoling soupçon of cheddar—the truth is that I felt rattled. Unsettled. Disturbed in a way and at some deep level I was unable to account for.

It wasn't only that the woman was allergic and a cat-hater. I was also surprised at the strength of my own feelings. From the moment she'd walked through the door, an instant and powerful animosity I hadn't even known I possessed had welled up within me.

At an ordinary level, none of it made sense. But because of all the conversations I'd overheard through the years, I was aware of a reality that ran beneath the ordinary. Dynamics that might explain why things appeared to me the way they did.

In an entirely unexpected and unwelcome way, that afternoon it felt as though something in my distant past was catching up with me.

My paws led me back to Namgyal through force of habit. I was about to cross the courtyard when I caught sight of someone sitting alone on a bench under the cedar tree near the monastery gate. I could hardly believe my eyes. Catching a glimpse of Yogi Tarchin was a rare event, given that most of the time he lived in strict seclusion. Discovering him in the Namgyal courtyard was simply extraordinary. And to find him here, today of all days, seemed the most incredible timing.

Although Yogi Tarchin wasn't a monk, he was revered by all for his accomplishments as a meditator. Stories about him were legendary. It was said that he had appeared in the dreams of his students, giving them instructions that later saved their lives. There were few things in the past, in the future, or in the minds of others that Yogi Tarchin seemed unable to see.

Whatever the inspiring stories about him, however, Yogi Tarchin was more inspiring still in person. Like the Dalai Lama, his presence was something you
felt
. You weren't introduced to him so much as touched by his being. A field of profound serenity extended well beyond his physical form to embrace all those around him.

I had met Yogi Tarchin through Serena—the Trincis were long-standing friends and had helped sponsor him through numerous retreats. And even though I had been only a hanger-on during her visit to him, our encounter that time had seemed to be no casual thing. The night after I'd spent time with him, I'd had that astonishing dream—the one in which my past life as the Dalai Lama's dog had been revealed.

This afternoon he was wearing a gold-colored shirt the same hue as the liquid amber of the afternoon sun and brown trousers. His sandaled feel crossed neatly at the ankles. His face was ageless and radiant, and he had a gray moustache and goatee—the classic features of an oriental sage. His lightness of spirit, hinted at in the warmth of his brown eyes, was never far from the surface.

I felt delight the moment I saw him—not, of course, that I showed it. We cats are far too soigné and sophisticated for that. Instead, I walked over to a gatepost and sniffed at it tentatively before ambling over to his bench and, still not directly acknowledging him, rubbed myself against its wooden legs.

Knowing better than to try to coax me, Yogi Tarchin simply sat with his hand dangling down from the bench seat. After a decent period elapsed I made my way over to where he was sitting, as though I happened to be heading in that direction anyway. I rubbed up against his hand. He lifted me gently onto his lap, where I quickly settled. His fingernails massaged my forehead just how I liked it, and I purred loudly.

“Beautiful day, isn't it?” murmured Yogi Tarchin. “Much better to be here and now, on a perfect afternoon in the courtyard, than lost in cognition.”

What he said was so true. Simply being on his lap, I felt quite naturally brought into the present. Away from remembering the unpleasant episode at the café. Looking through the deep green branches of the cedar, I noticed the sky—clear and azure—and the ever-present Himalayas in the distance, their ice-capped peaks gleaming in the sunlight.

The here and now. What contentment it held! Why spoil it by thinking?

In recent weeks I had become a more regular meditator. Even though I continued to be troubled by mental fleas, sometimes they seemed less aggressive in their activity. While remaining aware of them, I was able to keep my attention on my breath. On such fleeting occasions, they seemed to disappear. Sitting on Yogi Tarchin's lap, I was barely troubled by them at all.

I'm not sure how long I had been sitting there, absorbed in the present, when I was jolted into thought by none other than Serena. She was walking down toward the Himalaya Book Café on the other side of the street, arms crossed and with an intense expression on her face. In recent months I had often seen her walking in just the same way, wearing the same face. I wondered where she'd been.

She glanced over into the courtyard. Seeing the two of us sitting together, her expression instantly changed. As did her direction. She crossed the street, came through the gates, and approached where we sat, palms folded at her heart.

“Rinpoche!” she greeted Yogi Tarchin with a smile, bowing slightly. Then, sitting on the bench next to us, she said, “Other Rinpoche!” to me.

“We've both been waiting for you,” said Yogi Tarchin with a chuckle. Like many of the things said by enlightened masters, it was sometimes hard to tell whether he was being playful or serious. Having never seen him in the courtyard before, let alone sitting on this bench, it seemed more than simple coincidence. I felt sure he was here for a reason.

“You are busy,” he said, nodding in the direction from which she'd come.

Serena's face clouded. She glanced away from him for a few moments before seeming to decide that there was no point pretending.

“Oh, Rinpoche!” she said, her eyes revealing her inner turbulence. “I know I often treat you like a therapist, but I don't know what to do!”

Yogi Tarchin reached out and squeezed her arm reassuringly. “This is why I'm here,” he said before reaching down to stroke me. I felt included in what he'd just said. In the warmth of that late afternoon, I wondered what was about to unfold. Yogi Tarchin's advice was always insightful.

“Is it your maharajah friend?” His voice was soft.

She nodded.

“In so many ways everything between us is . . . just perfect,” she managed after a while. “He and Zahra, his gorgeous daughter . . . the three of us had seemed to become this perfect little family.”

Taking a handkerchief out of her purse, she wiped her eyes and face.

“Sid asked me to move in with him. Not to where he's living right now; he says he doesn't want us living above the shop. He bought a bungalow just along this street.” She gestured in the direction from which she'd been walking.

My ears pricked up at this. How far away? I wondered.

“The idea was that it would take a couple of months for some renovations, then we'd move in. When the couple of months stretched out to six, I was disappointed. But I accepted that work on the house just couldn't be finished before then.

“A few other things have been going wrong in the meantime—cancellations, postponements of what had been planned as really special moments for the three of us. I've just been up at the house and now I've been told it could still be
another
six months until the renovations are complete! Something to do with appliances having to be imported. There's always some excuse. But the workers there are always evasive. It doesn't feel right. My gut instinct is that there's more to this. Someone behind the whole thing. I'm just terrified it's going to come between Sid and me.”

Yogi Tarchin nodded calmly. “My dear, your intuition may very well be right.” He met her eyes directly. “But perhaps you have to allow things to unfold of their own accord. You can't force a rosebud to open by plucking at its petals. Sometimes, you must wait for nature to take its course, for the other person to see reality for himself.”

There was a long pause while she absorbed what he'd told her. She knew that Yogi Tarchin's advice was impeccable, that everything he'd ever told her had been true.

After a while she shook her head. “Why now?” she asked. “Why at this time? Is it karma?”

“Of course. All is cause and effect. Action and reaction.”

“From a past life?”

“Most things in this life arise from causes created in previous ones. And the causes we create in this lifetime will bear fruit in future lives.”

“It just seems a bit . . . futile,” she said, sounding despairing for a moment.

“How do you mean?”

“We all go around creating causes for future effects without even being aware of it. Then, by the time the effects happen, we have no idea why because we're not even the same beings we were when we caused them.”

Serena was giving voice to one of the very questions that had been vexing me ever since my extraordinary dream. Looking up, I watched as Yogi Tarchin threw his head back. His eyes crinkled shut and he laughed. He seemed to find this hilarious.

“What?” Serena asked him after a while. A smile formed at the corners of her mouth, but lines also appeared on her forehead.

“The way you put it like that—too funny!” he said, gasping.

“But it's true, isn't it?”

He nodded, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Yes, yes. Different person. But same subtle continuum. Same energy. Energy is not created or destroyed. Because consciousness is energy, it, too, is never destroyed. It changes form, yes, but it's always there and always has been there.

“Our big problem, as humans, is mistaking this very temporary thing we call ‘me,' this acquired personality, with our subtle consciousness, which is primordial. We do things to advance the short-term interests of this temporary ‘me,' even things that involve harming others, thinking that because there is no immediate effect on the temporary ‘me,' that there will be no effect at all.

“But when you step back and view time from a wider perspective, you can see how one human lifetime is like this,” he said as he snapped his fingers. “Just because there is no instant effect doesn't mean there is no effect at all. All actions have results. How can a negative action give rise to anything but a negative result? Or a positive action give rise to anything but a positive result?

“What moves from one lifetime to another with the flow of subtle consciousness isn't the acquired personality. It isn't intelligence, a memory, religious views, or race. It isn't even species.”

I paid special attention to this last point and listened closely to Yogi Tarchin.

“When I die,” he continued, “you will never see me again. That is the end of the Yogi Tarchin experience. Does that mean my life has been futile?”

He had returned to her point directly and was now looking into her eyes.

“No.” He shook his head. “The opposite. In this lifetime, we create the causes for whatever we wish our consciousness to experience in the future. Human life, in particular, offers an unrivaled opportunity to create limitless causes not only for future positive experiences but, more important, the chance to break free completely from this cycle of birth, aging, and death.”