The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Power of Meow (The Dalai Lama's Cat 3)

“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.”