The Art of Purring (The Dalai Lama's Cat 2)

“Totally awesome!” exclaimed another.

“She’s adorable,” cooed yet another.

There was great excitement for a few moments as everyone took time to digest this globally significant news. Once normal conversation had resumed, I returned to the golf balls. I hadn’t realized how reassuringly solid they were. And such heft! I now knew why golfers could send them flying long distances.

I flicked another ball across the floor toward a black plastic cup. It overshot its mark, hit the baseboard, and came hurtling back toward me. Startled, I leapt aside just in time. Apparently, golfing could be unpredictable and dangerous in ways I had never imagined.

Bored with golf, I wandered down a corridor to find the kitchen. Unlike the kitchens at Jokhang, which were in constant use and in which an enticing medley of scents could always be detected, Sam’s kitchen was sterile and uninteresting, probably because he ate most of his meals downstairs. I noticed a few empty beer cans and an ice cream carton in the garbage. No intrigue here.

I was wandering around looking for more rooms—there weren’t any—as someone on the conference call was saying, “Psychology is still a young science. It was just over a hundred years ago that Freud coined the term psychoanalysis. Since then most of the focus has been on helping people with serious mental challenges. It’s only recently that we’ve seen trends like Positive Psychology, in which the focus is not on going from minus ten to zero but from zero to plus ten.”

“Maximizing our potential,” chimed in someone.

“A state of greatest flourishing,” added someone else.

“What I don’t get,” Sam was saying, “is why, after all the research in recent decades, there still doesn’t seem to be a formula for happiness.”

I paused. Formula for happiness? That was so Sam, with his programs and codes and algorithms. As if happiness could be reduced to a collection of scientific data.

“There is an equation,” the man in the center of Sam’s screen was saying. “But like most formulas, it needs some explaining.”

Really? I wasn’t sure if the Dalai Lama knew of such a formula, but the very idea that such a thing might exist made me prick up my ears.

“The formula is H equals S plus C plus V,” said the man, as he keyed it in and it came up on the screen. “Happiness equals what’s called your biological set point, or S, plus the conditions of your life, C, plus V, your voluntary activities. According to this theory, each individual has a set point, or average level of happiness. Some people are naturally upbeat and cheerful, putting them at one end of the bell curve. Others are temperamentally gloomy and fall to the other end. The vast majority of us fall somewhere in the middle. This set point is our personal norm, the base level of subjective well-being we tend to return to after the triumphs and tragedies and day-to-day ups and downs of our lives. Winning the lottery might make you happier for a while, but the research shows that eventually you are likely to revert to your set point.”

“Is there a way to change the set point?” asked a young woman with a British accent. “Or are we just stuck with it?”

I hopped from the floor to the bed, and the bed to the desk, so I could follow the discussion better.

“Meditation,” said a man with a shiny bald head and glowing skin. “It has a powerful impact. Studies have shown that the set points of experienced meditators are right off the scale.”

Yes, I thought, His Holiness certainly knows about that!

“Turning to conditions, C,” continued the man who had been explaining set-point theory, “there are some things about our conditions we can’t control—gender, age, race, sexual orientation, for example. Depending on where you’re born in the world, those factors may or may not have a huge impact on your likely level of happiness.

“As for V, the voluntary variables,” he said, “these include activities you choose to pursue, such as exercising, meditating, learning to play the piano, getting involved with a cause. Such activities require ongoing attention, which means that you don’t habituate to them in the way that you might get used to a new car, say, or a new girlfriend and lose interest when the novelty wears off.”

This prompted chuckling around the world.

He went on. “When you take the happiness formula overall, you can see that while there are certain things that can’t be changed, there are others that can. The key focus should be on things you can change that will have a positive impact on your feeling of well-being.”

A distant crash of cymbals and the blast of a Tibetan horn reminded me of the ceremony being held at Namgyal Monastery that day. All the monks were being treated to a celebratory meal in honor of several newly graduated Geshes who had successfully come to the end of their 14 years of study. In the past, I had found that spending time near the monastery kitchens on such occasions proved very rewarding.

Hopping down from Sam’s desk and heading toward the stairs, I reflected on the happiness formula. It was an interesting perspective, and not so different from what His Holiness used to say. Contemporary research from the West and ancient wisdom from the East seemed to be arriving at the same place.

Several days later Bronnie Wellenksy arrived at the café with a new flyer to be posted on the notice board. Bronnie, the 20-something Canadian coordinator of an education charity, used the café notice board to display posters for tourists, announcing activities like visits to craft centers and concerts by local performers. She was boisterous, jolly, and always on the move, her shoulder-length hair perennially disheveled. Although she had been in Dharamsala for only about six months, she was already remarkably well connected.

“This one’s perfect for you,” she called out to Sam, as she pinned a flyer to the board.

Sam looked up from his screen.

“What’s that?”

“We need volunteer teachers to give local teenage kids basic computer training. It boosts their employability.”

“I already have a job,” replied Sam.

“It’s very part time,” Bronnie said. “Like two evenings a week. Even one evening would be great.”