The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Power of Meow (12 page)

And that was when I realized something.

In previous weeks, I had been through far worse than today's petty disappointments. Only ten days ago I had been completely drenched in a downpour and couldn't get back inside the house for hours because someone had shut my window. At the time I had been frustrated but stoic. Because I had practiced meditating, my thoughts had been calm and at peace. I knew a door or window would eventually open. Just as I knew, right now, that there were greater misfortunes in the world than having to eat seafood medley for breakfast and missing out on a lunchtime treat.

Realizing the effect that the meditation practice had on my mind came as a wonderful surprise. I felt almost grateful to have missed out on the sole meunière! I had proven, for myself, the difference that meditation made—and I knew this revelation would make it that much easier to return to regular practice again. Feeling almost celebratory, I scampered along the upstairs corridor. I heard lively chatter coming from the executive assistants' office and peeked in. I remembered something about Serena coming in to discuss a VIP lunch the following week: in her mother's absence, she had offered her services as VIP chef. Along with Serena and Tenzin sat the Dalai Lama's new translator, Oliver.

Oliver had been working at Namgyal for less than a month, but he and Tenzin had already become fast friends after the latter discovered that Oliver came from Berkshire, in England. Having attended Oxford University in the distant past, Tenzin was a staunch Anglophile. He soon learned that he and Oliver shared a deep appreciation for the BBC, Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, and tea correctly served—which invariably it wasn't in McLeod Ganj. Just then, all three of them were gathered around the two executive assistants' desks, a tea tray in front of them.

“I'm not at all surprised at her doctor,” Oliver was saying. “Of all the research done, there have been more studies on high blood pressure and stress than on anything else.”

“I had no idea,” said Serena.

“Dozens of them, in top medical schools. The results are consistent. Meditation has a major impact on every biological marker of stress. It brings down high blood pressure. Slows hardening of the arteries. Boosts endorphins and the immune system. Increases the production of melatonin, a powerful antioxidant that destroys free radicals.”

“Yes,” Serena chimed. “Her doctor mentioned free radicals.”

“There's a lot of stuff coming out now about longevity, too, and how it increases with meditation.”

“It must be wonderful,” Tenzin observed somewhat wistfully, “to be a really good meditator.”

I was standing out of view by the doorway. With his back to me, sitting in Chogyal's old chair, Oliver was nodding. “As it happens, most of the studies done are on novices.”

“Really?” Serena was incredulous.

“I suppose there'd be little point in doing studies only using very experienced meditators,” observed Tenzin. “Most of us will never be in that category.”

“Exactly,” agreed Oliver. “There are massive changes even when people have fairly poor concentration. It doesn't take us long to discover the truth in Shantideva's verse about emotional protection.”

“Which one is that?” asked Serena.

“‘Where would I possibly find enough leather,'” quoted Oliver, “‘with which to cover the surface of the earth? Yet wearing leather just on the soles of my shoes, is equivalent to covering the earth with it.'”

“Wonderful!” said Tenzin. “Sometimes we can't avoid stepping on thorns, but we can stop them from hurting us.”

Intrigued, I moved closer to the office door. The verse Oliver had just quoted couldn't have been a better description of my experience that morning. Little had I realized that I had wandered out into the world without the emotional protection to which I had become accustomed.

“So, how is your mother?” Oliver asked Serena.

“Stronger and stronger by the day.”

“Keeping up the meditation?”

“Very much so.”

“Excellent!”

“Even starting to enjoy it a little. Which is making her concerned. She sees it as a Buddhist practice, and she's a Catholic—although a lapsed one.”

Oliver chuckled.

“Even though His Holiness has always encouraged her to stick to her own tradition, she can't help feeling—”

“She's being surreptitiously converted into a Buddhist?” Oliver finished for her.

“Exactly!” Serena beamed.

“Well, you can tell her to relax because meditation isn't owned by Buddhists. Different meditations are used by Christian monastic orders like the Franciscans and Benedictines. And there are secular practices like Transcendental Meditation and mindfulness meditation that have no connection to any religion.”

“But meditation is central to Buddhism.”

“Definitely.”

“Why is that?”

Oliver leaned back in his chair. “Buddhism is about understanding our own true nature. What and who we really are. Having a head full of ideas about this only gets us so far. What really matters is discovering it for ourselves. And that's only possible by training the mind so that we can experience our most subtle levels of consciousness directly.”

Serena nodded. “Geshe-la was talking about the importance of realizations only last week.”

“Because they're so important,” agreed Oliver. “I know people who've received many teachings, and they've read a ton of books, and they're very knowledgeable about the teachings and can explain them well. And they'll say, ‘I feel I'm just going around and around in circles, never making any progress,' and the problem is almost always that they don't meditate. That's because their understanding is only skin-deep.”

Having allowed the tea to brew, Tenzin picked up a battered silver teapot in a knitted salmon-pink tea cozy and, after reverentially rocking it three times to the right and then three times to the left, began pouring out three cups through a strainer.

Accepting a cup from Tenzin, Serena said, “I will tell Mum what you said about Christians meditating, Oliver. I'm sure she'll be reassured.”

Oliver nodded. “I remember meditating in a Benedictine monastery when I was young. And at a Quaker meeting. Dad took me along—part of reaching out to other faiths.”

“Your father was a Buddhist?” asked Tenzin.

“Oh no!” Oliver chuckled. “A vicar. Still is. I was brought up very Church of England.”

“Intriguing!” Serena raised her eyebrows.

“Services three times every Sunday. High days and holy days. Bible verses to learn by rote. When I was growing up, everyone thought I'd follow in my father's footsteps.”

“And instead . . . ?” prompted Tenzin.

“Instead I studied languages, including Sanskrit, and found myself drawn to Buddhism.”

“How did your parents react?” asked Tenzin.

“It was a gradual thing. They had plenty of time to get used to the idea. The paradox is that I go home and find half my Buddhist books in Dad's study—he goes through them to pinch ideas for his sermons.”

As the three of them laughed, I decided to find out if there might be an afternoon refreshment in the office for me. I stepped into the room and behind Chogyal's old chair, currently occupied by Oliver.

“Is there anything that you miss?” asked Serena.

“About the Church of England?” asked Oliver. “Not anymore. In my very early days as a Buddhist, I used to miss the music. All that glorious orchestral work. And the sacred choral pieces—especially from the baroque period. Even some of the hymns, which form part of my earliest memories. Music is incredibly powerful, almost magical in the way it marries consciousness to energy. Different music carries different vibrational qualities, and just listening to it can change one's own energy and mood—it's like alchemy.

“When I first began practicing the Dharma, I felt I'd turned away from all that, but then my understanding of Buddhism deepened and I came back to sacred music with a fresh appreciation. What is it, if not an attempt to express the inexpressible?”

The late-afternoon sun, sliding toward the horizon, reflected from a window opposite and filled the office in a glow of ethereal light. It seemed obvious now why the Dalai Lama had chosen Oliver as his new interpreter. Not only for his understanding of Tibetan, English, and a half dozen other languages. It was also for his radiant intelligence—one that seemed, quite comfortably, to straddle East and West, Buddhism and Christianity, outer and inner realities. Oliver was not only a translator of words. He was also spiritually multilingual.

“So I no longer miss the music,” he continued. “It has returned to my life as a source of great joy.”

Serena and Tenzin had been listening intently as I hopped from the floor to the desk and approached the tea tray. I leaned over it, nostrils twitching, to confirm that more than a smidgen of milk remained in the jug. Then, sitting purposefully, I looked directly at Serena and meowed softly.

The three humans seemed to find this amusing.

“Oh, HHC, would you also like something to drink?” Serena asked unnecessarily, glancing at Tenzin. “Do you usually . . . ?”

“She hasn't joined us in the past.” Standing, Tenzin pushed aside letterhead marked with the heraldic crest of Kensington Palace to make space for a saucer from the tea tray. “First time for everything.”

“A very polite meow,” observed Oliver, sipping his tea.

“Rinpoche is a darling cat,” said Serena, leaning forward to stroke me.

“Rinpoche?” Oliver's eyes sparkled. “I thought she was HHC?”

“Oh,” Tenzin said, chuckling, “she is a cat of many names. His Holiness calls her Snow Lion. That's his personal term of endearment.”

“To my mother, she is the Most Beautiful Creature That Ever Lived. And at the Downward Dog School of Yoga, she is revered as Swami,” Serena added.

“Swami?” Tenzin reacted with surprise. “I didn't know that one.”

I could tell the direction his thoughts were taking by his tone of voice and shot him a glance. There was, dear reader, another very different name that had been bestowed on me during my earliest days at Namgyal. It wasn't one I approved of, and it had been given to me in this very office by the Dalai Lama's driver—a rough sort of fellow. It was one of those nicknames that captures your behavior at its very worst, to everyone's amusement but your own.

Understanding my glance, Tenzin fixed his features into his diplomat's poker face. “Swami . . . ,” he repeated. “She's been called worse.”

“We usually bestow different names on those whom we love,” observed Oliver. I looked over at him, taking in the eyes sparkling behind the spectacles, the aura of niceness about him. Oliver and I were going to get along well, I decided.

“Think of the Dalai Lama,” said Oliver. “When he was reinstated on the lion throne in the Potala Palace, he was given many names. The Lotus Thunderbolt. Great Precious Prince of the Soft Voice. Mighty in Speech. Excellent of Knowledge. Absolute in Wisdom. The One Without Equal. Powerful Ruler of Three Worlds. Of course, most of us know him simply as the Presence.”

“Kundun.”
Tenzin used the Tibetan word.

“Perhaps the most apt,” said Serena. “When you're with him, sometimes even when you're not with him—”

“You feel it.” Oliver met her eyes with a warm understanding in his own.

“I'm so pleased you've come to Namgyal,” Serena said as she reached out spontaneously to squeeze his hand. “You probably don't know this, but I was good friends with your predecessor, Lobsang.”

“Actually, I did know.” Oliver put down his cup and pushed back his chair. “And I'm glad you mentioned it. I found something the other day I thought you may like to have.”

After he left the office, Tenzin and Serena exchanged a few words about how very special His Holiness's new translator was and how wonderfully he fitted in. After lapping the very last drops of milk from the saucer, I sat up, raising my front left paw and beginning to lick it in preparation for a post-prandial face wash.

When Oliver returned he was holding a small, square Kodachrome photograph, which he gave Serena. As soon as she saw it, her face lit up.

“Oh my goodness! Where did you find this?” she exclaimed.

“I was clearing out some bookshelves and it fell out from somewhere.”

“I don't even remember . . .”

Tenzin was peeking over her shoulder. I paused my face-washing momentarily. The photograph was of Lobsang and Serena as teenagers in the kitchen downstairs. Both were wearing aprons and chopping vegetables, no doubt in preparation for a VIP lunch.

“All those years ago.” Serena's voice was soft. “Dear Lobsang. I so hope he is well.”

“I'm quite sure he is,” Oliver assured her. “He's living in Bhutan right now.”

“With his family?”

“Some sort of job helping the queen.”

My ears pricked up at this. As a relative of the Bhutanese royal family, it had been Lobsang who'd arranged for the adoption of my one and only daughter, little Snow Cub, by the queen.

“How interesting the way the world turns.” Serena reached out to stroke me. “And how reassuring that Lobsang will be keeping an eye on Rinpoche's daughter.”

“In Bhutan?” asked Oliver.

As Serena explained the connection, Oliver looked over at me with new reverence.

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “So HHC is the queen's cat's mother!”

“Could there be any higher nobility?” Tenzin asked with a droll smile as the three of them observed me washing me ears.

“There may be,” smiled Oliver. “But none that I've ever heard of!”