“You already did that a long time ago, Mrs. Trinci,” Tenzin assured her, shooting a look toward the oven, where the cookies were baking to a rich, gold color.
“Would you like a plate of cookies to take upstairs, Tenzin?” Serena asked, noticing his glance with a smile.
“Only if . . .”
Serena was already opening the oven door and pulling out a tray of cookies baked to perfection.
“Be careful when you take a bite into them,” she warned, lifting several onto a plate with a spatula. “The chocolate inside is still hot.”
That was how, a short while later, Tenzin, Oliver, and I found ourselves enjoying celebratory tea and cookies on a balcony. Between the executive assistants’ office and His Holiness’s suite was a VIP lounge where visitors could be seated before being shown in for an audience. That lounge opened onto a balcony that was rarely used. The Dalai Lama was over at Namgyal Monastery all morning, so the unused balcony, with its arboreal view of the local countryside, was the perfect spot to relax.
Tenzin had prepared two cups of tea in the correct manner: by warming the teapot first, measuring out five heaped teaspoons of Ceylon leaves, adding the boiled water, allowing proper time for the tea to steep, gently rocking the teapot first one way and then the other, and finally pouring the tea into cups through a strainer. In the meantime, Oliver had poured out a saucer of milk for me.
In the open air, the three of us enjoyed our treats with the mindful contemplation of connoisseurs.
It was only after the two men had finished their cookies that Oliver wiped his hands on a napkin and opened a folder on his lap.
“The figures in from Herne Hill Monastery are especially interesting reading,” he said.
Tenzin looked over with a querying expression. Herne Hill was one of the most isolated monasteries of all, and although not a large one, the sangha there was well known for its commitment to meditation retreats.
“Average age,” Oliver quoted, “eighty-four.”
“That is high,” agreed Tenzin.
“Highest of all the centers in our census.”
“I visited there a few years ago,” Tenzin told him. “There was no hiding the wrinkles, but the monks’ demeanor, their life force, was still very youthful. They are an excellent case study of what happens when people are left alone to get on with their practice.”
Oliver nodded. “In the West, we are still struggling to learn how consciousness affects the body. But just recently there have been some great results showing how meditation slows down aging. Telomerase activity. Genetic copying. It all adds up . . . to eighty-four!”
Tenzin chuckled. “Average,” he emphasized. “Half of them are older than that.”
For a while, the only sound was of me licking the saucer to purge it of every last drop of cream. Every rasp of my tongue caused the saucer to clink against the leg of the chair on which Oliver was seated. Oliver reached his arm down to stroke me.
“Why is it,” mused Tenzin, “that Westerners struggle so much with the idea that the mind affects the body?”
There was a pause while Oliver considered the question. “It was only about a century ago that mind was even considered to be a valid scientific subject.”
“About two and a half thousand years after the East?”
“Exactly. Up till then, Western science focused on the external world. For most of this time, people thought of the mind as part of the soul—it was a religious matter. When scientists finally did turn their attention to consciousness, at first they thought it amounted to nothing more than brain activity.”
“The mind is the brain?” asked Tenzin.
“It’s what a lot of people still assume.”
Oliver raised his cup to his lips and sipped his tea reflectively. “Trouble is, scientists can’t really prove the theory—to explain exactly how cells can create consciousness, for example. To me it seems as unlikely as saying that your laptop can feel emotions.”
“Haven’t I read somewhere that there is still no evidence that memories are stored in the brain?” Tenzin raised another objection.
“Exactly. Despite billions of dollars of research, it’s never been proven. And there are other big holes in the theory, like how people in comas, whose brains are completely inactive, later report the most vivid experiences.”
“Not a very convincing theory,” observed Tenzin.
“But you’d be surprised how many Western scientists still believe it,” agreed Oliver. “Fortunately, things have started to move on. Recent developments in quantum science have helped us see the most wonderful convergences between Western science and Eastern wisdom.”
“Ancient and contemporary.”