The actress turned to Tenzin. “Would that be the correct interpretation?”
“I can understand why people might think that,” he replied. “But it’s important not to be too literal. Because you give someone something one day doesn’t mean you have created the cause to receive exactly the same thing another day. Karma operates not so much as some external credit-and-debit ledger but more as an energy, a charge that grows over time. This is how even small acts of generosity, especially when motivated by the best intention, can become causes for much greater wealth in the future.”
The actress and her colleagues were studying him closely.
“Where it gets interesting,” Tenzin continued, “is that in giving, we not only create the causes for future wealth, we also create the conditions for the ripening of whatever wealth karma we alre
ady possess. Hard work and shrewd business dealings are conditions for wealth but so too is generosity.”
“There’s logic to what you say,” said the actress. “And it interests me that Jesus also said, ‘As you sow, so shall you reap.’”
“The notion of karma was widely accepted in the earliest days of Christianity,” agreed Tenzin. “Not only were important symbols imported from the East, such as the sign of the fish and the halo”—he gestured to a wall hanging of Buddha crowned by a brilliant azure halo—“but it seems to me that the central teachings of loving thy neighbor, having compassion, and the like may also have made their way along the Old Silk Road two thousand years ago.”
The looks of concentration on the visitors’ faces were keen.
“One thing I don’t understand about karma,” the actress said, “is where it all happens. If there is no God deciding to punish or reward, and no cosmic computer keeping a record, where is it all happening?”
“That question goes to the heart of it,” replied Tenzin. “It is all happening in the continuum of our minds. Our experience of reality is a lot more subjective than we generally realize. We are not simply passive receptors of events. At all times we are actively projecting our own personal version of reality onto the world around us. Two people in the same circumstances will have very different experiences of what happened. This is because they have different karma.
“The law of cause and effect,” Tenzin continued, “says that, step by step, we can create the causes to experience reality in a way that results in greater contentment and abundance, and we can avoid the causes of unhappiness and lack of resources. Buddha himself summed it up best when he said: ‘The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings … As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.’”
A short while later, the actress and her party rose from the table, thanking Tenzin and the others for all their help. They were gathering their jackets and scarves when the actress looked over at the armchair on which I was seated, legs tucked neatly under my body.
“Good heavens! Is that the cat … you know … from this morning?”
Tenzin glanced over at me with the same poker face he had worn on the afternoon he had discovered me seated on the lotus cushion at Café Franc.
“She looks similar,” he conceded.
“I’ve never seen Snow Lion venture so far away,” said Lobsang.
“Himalayan cats are quite popular here,” ventured Lobsang’s assistant.
The actress shook her head with a wry smile. “Well, it certainly was an unexpected performance.”
Late that afternoon, Tenzin was briefing the Dalai Lama on the day’s events as the two of them enjoyed their green tea, accompanied on this occasion by wafer-thin biscotti baked by the ever-bountiful Mrs. Trinci. Having discussed most of the day’s activities, His Holiness turned to the tree-planting ceremony.
“How did the breakfast go? I hope the visitors were happy with the outcome.”
“It went very well, Your Holiness. And our guest phoned me just a short while ago to say how thrilled she is with the awareness being created.”
“There were a lot of media crews this morning,” observed the Dalai Lama. “I have never seen so many television cameras at Jokhang!”
“The event was well covered by the media,” said Tenzin. “But the real booster is a YouTube video that instantly went viral. Apparently, it already has more than ten million hits.”
“For a tree-planting ceremony?” His Holiness raised his eyebrows.
“It begins with that. But the real star of the show”—Tenzin turned to look in my direction—“is our little Rinpoche.”
The Dalai Lama burst out laughing. Then, making an effort to contain himself, he said, “Perhaps we should not laugh. I am not sure who got more of a surprise, our Rinpoche or the journalists.”
Coming over to where I was sitting, he scooped me up in his arms and stroked me slowly. “This morning when we all woke up, none of us guessed you were about to become—how do you say?—an international sensation. But you have created more awareness of the problem facing forests in a single morning than some people create in a whole lifetime.”
I began to purr.
“Most interesting karma.”
CHAPTER SIX