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.”