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

I did know this, dear reader, very well.

Skillful means.

Later that evening, I contemplated how so many things could be achieved with a positive mind, patience, and skill. I was with the Dalai Lama when he went to sleep each night. With him, too, when he rose every morning. I sat on his sill for much of the day. And I never saw him stressed out, self-serving, or trying to dominate and control. His intentions were always benevolent, and he wished only for the well-being of others. And from this place of boundless compassion, sometimes the most amazing, even magical things would arise.

His Holiness’s last visitor that day was Geshe Lhundup.

“We’ve now had the results back from the carbon dating, graphologists, and some of our most learned scholars,” he reported, his eyes gleaming. “They all agree. The middle section of the terma is the personal writing of the Great Fifth.”

“Wonderful!” Across the table from him, the Dalai Lama smiled enthusiastically. “And an original piece of writing?”

“Indeed.” Geshe Lhundup nodded. “It may not be a long text, but it is on a new subject. We have identified three different authors of the terma. It appears that the Great Fifth asked for contributions from two leading scholars at the time, and each approached the same message from a slightly different perspective.”

“A message highly relevant today.”

“A terma in every respect,” agreed Geshe Lhundup. “Had it been discovered even thirty years ago, the document would have been too far ahead of its time.”

“Yes, yes. I will have to think carefully about what to do with it. I would like to engage Western scientists.” I remembered how utterly absorbed His Holiness had that night when Geshe Lhundup had first delivered the copy of the text to him.

“It seems to apply ideas similar to quantum science to the field of healing.”

“Exactly,” agreed the Dalai Lama. “Even though scientists have long understood that matter is also energy, it is only in recent years that they have asked how this applies to medicine. How to seek healing not of a body, but of an energy field.”

“I have been studying the text ever since it arrived. It is so clear! So profound!” Geshe Lhundup’s excitement was infectious. “I think it could be the most important new text I have ever had the privilege of studying. It could help to change the fundamental way that healing is approached.”

For some time the two men discussed the content of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s text. Their discussion was much like the one I’d overhead between Tenzin and Oliver on how the meditators at Herne Hill lived such long lives because of the qualities of their minds. The new terma seemed to take the idea further, affirming that every thought has a biological effect. How certain states of mind are associated with physiological changes. How, instead of treating matter with matter, it can be treated in

stead with the energy of mind.

This conversation, however, moved onto something of far greater personal significance.

“As you know, I sent the metal tube and leather pouch away for carbon dating,” Geshe Lhundup told His Holiness. “But I didn’t say anything about cat whiskers.”

The Dalai Lama chuckled.

“They are rigorous at the laboratories. Very thorough. It turns out that they found two whiskers, which they also carbon dated. One found inside the pouch, I’m guessing”—he glanced in the direction of the sill—“is from HHC, because of the date. The other was found between the pages of the text itself.”

His Holiness raised his eyebrows.

“Three hundred and fifty years old.”

“The Fifth Dalai Lama also had a cat?”

“Not just any cat.” Geshe Lhundup leaned forward. “The report says that the genetic coding of the older whisker was nearly identical to HHC’s.”

“That means . . . a very similar cat?” confirmed His Holiness.

Geshe Lhundup nodded.

“A Himalayan?”

“Perhaps even an ancestor of HHC.”

Both men turned to look at me where I sat, staring out at the courtyard, seemingly oblivious to their conversation. In fact, I was tuned into every word that they said.

In recent weeks I had spent a lot of time mulling over the implications of my recent dream as well as the revelation about Norbu and the impression made by the mysterious, powerful man who had rescued me during my lifetime as the Dalai Lama’s dog. Geshe Lhundup’s revelations from four centuries before came as yet another extraordinary revelation: an earlier reincarnation of His Holiness had also had a feline companion who had been a Himalayan.

A 17th century incarnation of me?