The Dalai Lama's Cat (23 page)

But not so fast, dear reader. Are there not two sides to every story?

It’s true that there can be few cats in history who have benefited from the peerless conditions in which I find myself. Not only are all my material needs fulfilled and my whims indulged—sometimes before I’m even aware of them myself—but my cerebral world is enlivened by the rich variety of visitors and activities that swirl around me. Emotionally, it would be hard to imagine being more loved, worshipped, and adored by those for whom I, in turn, have only the most heartfelt devotion.

And spiritually, as you already know, all it takes is for His Holiness to step into a room, and all ordinary appearances and conceptions seem to dissolve away, leaving only an abiding sensation of profound well-being. Given that I spend so much of each day in his presence, sleep through every night at the foot of his bed, and spend many hours in his lap, I must be one of the most blissed-out cats on the planet.

Where, pray tell, is the downside of all of that?

As the Dalai Lama frequently explains, inner development is something for which we must each take personal responsibility. Other beings cannot make us more mindful, so that we can experience the rich tapestry of everyday experience to the fullest. Similarly, other beings cannot force us to become more patient or kind, no matter how conducive to our contentment patience or kindness would be. As for improving concentration while meditating, this is, quite obviously, something we need to do for ourselves.

And so we come to the heart of the matter, the cause of my embarrassing but undeniable vexation.

Day after day, I sit in audiences with His Holiness, listening to the meditation experiences of advanced practitioners, knowing that I am incapable of meditating for more than two minutes without being distracted. Not a week goes by that I don’t hear about amazing adventures in consciousness undertaken by yogis who are asleep or technically—if temporarily—dead. But when I close my own eyes each night, I quickly fall into a state of heavy, oblivious torpor.

If I lived with a family who spent as much time watching television as the Dalai Lama spends meditating, and whose minds were just as agitated as my own, perhaps then, I sometimes think, I wouldn’t be quite so painfully aware of my own limitations. If I were surrounded by humans who believed that it is the people and things in their lives that make them happy or unhappy, rather than their attitude toward those people or things—well, then I could be considered the very wisest of cats.

But I’m not.

So I can’t be.

Instead, there are times when I feel so inadequate it seems pointless to even try becoming a genuine bodhicatva. My poor meditation skills. My habitual negative mental thoughts. Living at Jokhang is like being a pygmy among giants! Not to mention the fact that I have all manner of personal inadequacies, like my shadow side of gluttonous craving, which I battle each and every day, and my physical imperfections, instantly evident when I begin to walk, on account of my wobbly hind legs. And the acutely painful knowledge, like a sharp-edged grain of sand chafing at the very heart of my self-esteem, that my impeccable breeding is—oh, woe upon woes!—undocumented and likely to remain so till the end of time. It’s hard to keep believing that you are different or special or—dare one say it, blue-blooded—without the paperwork to prove it.

These were my precise thoughts when I ambled down the road one morning to Café Franc for a comfort meal. Making my way through the bustling tables, I paused to exchange wet-nose greetings with Marcel, who had become more cordial toward me since the arrival of Kyi Kyi. I indulged Franc with a beneficent purr when he reached down to stroke me. Then, darting out of the way of the head waiter, Kusali, who was balancing three plates of food on each arm, I ascended to my usual place between the glossy fashion magazines and surveyed my private theater.

There was the usual mixture of travelers—hikers, Seekers, Greenies, and sneaker-clad retirees. But my attention was immediately drawn to the 30-something man sitting alone at the table directly beside me, reading a copy of Bruce Lipton’s
The Biology of Belief
. Fresh-faced and handsome, with hazel eyes, a high forehead, and curly, dark hair, he was reading at a pace that suggested a ferocious intellect behind a pair of somewhat nerdy reading glasses.

Sam Goldberg was one of the longer-term patrons of the café. Arriving in McLeod Ganj a month earlier, on discovering Café Franc he had immediately become a daily visitor. It hadn’t taken Franc long to introduce himself.

The two of them had exchanged the usual small talk, during which I learned that Sam was taking time off after being laid off from his job in Los Angeles. He was in McLeod Ganj for an indeterminate time. He read an average of four books a week. He was an inveterate blogger on mind/body/spirit matters. And he had an online following of over 20,000 people.

It was during a conversation the previous week, however, that an interesting new possibility had emerged. During a lull between the midmorning and lunchtime crowds, Franc had pulled up a chair opposite Sam—an honor he bestowed only rarely on customers.

“What are you reading today?” he asked, sliding a complimentary latte toward Sam.

“Oh, thank you! Very kind.” Sam glanced at the coffee—and only very briefly at Franc—before returning his gaze to the book. “It’s the Dalai Lama’s commentary on the Heart Sutra,” he said. “One of the classics and a personal favorite. I must have read it a dozen times. Along with Thich Naht Hanh’s
Heart of Understanding
, I have found it the most useful work in helping unlock the sutra’s meaning.”

“Dependent arising is a difficult topic,” remarked Franc.

“The most difficult,” agreed Sam. “But for a broader understanding you can’t go much beyond Tilopa’s
Mahamudra Instruction to Naropa in Twenty-Eight Verses
or the First Panchen Lama’s
Main Road of the Triumphant Ones
. Tilopa’s verses are wonderfully lyrical, and poetry can sometimes convey a meaning that goes well beyond the words themselves. The Panchen Lama’s teachings are much more prosaic. But their power and clarity are exactly what you need when meditating on such a subtle object.”

Franc digested this in silence for a moment before saying, “It amazes me, Sam. Seems whatever subject I ask you about, you can rattle off the names of half a dozen books on the subject, together with a full critique.”

“Oh, n-n-n-n-no.” Flecks of pink appeared on Sam’s pale neck.

“I suppose you have to keep up with things for your blog?”

“Actually, the blog was a result”—Sam flashed a quick glance toward Franc without actually making eye contact—“rather than the cause.”

“You’ve always been a bookworm?”

“It helps if you are, in the industry. Th-th-the industry I used to be in, I mean.”

“And what industry was that?” asked Franc conversationally.

“Bookselling.”

“You mean … ?”

“I used to work for one of the chain bookstores.”

“That’s … intriguing.” I recognized the gleam in Franc’s eye. It was the same gleam I’d seen when he discovered I was the Dalai Lama’s cat.

“I ran a mind/body/spirit section,” continued Sam. “Needed to keep up to date with all the titles.”

“Tell me,” Franc said, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “This move to e-books and electronic readers. Does it mean the end of bookstores?”

Sam drew himself up in his chair before managing to look Franc in the eye for a full second. “Nobody has a crystal ball, but I think there are actually some stores that will thrive. Those that sell a particular kind of book. Perhaps organize events.”

“Like book cafés?”

“Exactly.”

Franc regarded Sam carefully for a long while before telling him, “For the past few months I’ve been wondering how I can diversify my business. I have that area, separate from the rest of the tables, that is underutilized.” He gestured toward the part of the café, up a few steps, where the lighting was more subdued and the tables often unoccupied. “I have a lot of tourists passing through here every day who may want to buy a new book—and there’s nowhere locally to buy one. Problem is, I know nothing about running a bookstore. And I didn’t know anyone who did, until now.”

Sam nodded.

“So, what do you think of the idea?”

“This is exactly the kind of place I could see a bookstore doing well. Like you say, there is no competition. It doesn’t hurt that mobile reception is hit-and-miss around these parts, making it hard to download e-books—”

“A lot of our customers already have a strong interest in mind/body/spirit books,” interjected Franc. “They’re in here reading them all the time.”

“If they’re coming for the overall experience,” chimed in Sam, “you could broaden that experience to include buying new books, CDs, perhaps gifts.”

“Buddhist and Indian novelty items.”

“Only the better-quality stuff.”

“Of course.”

For a full three seconds, Sam held Franc’s gaze. The gleam in Franc’s eye had developed into full-blown excitement. Even Sam’s customary shyness seemed to have lifted.

Then Franc asked, “Will you set it up for me?”

“You mean—?”

“And run it. As my bookstore manager.”

The enthusiasm quickly drained from Sam’s face.

“Well, that’s v-v-very nice of you to ask, but I couldn’t.” Deep furrows appeared on his forehead between his eyes. “I mean, I’m only here for a few weeks.”

“You’ve no job to go back to,” Franc reminded him, somewhat brutally. “I’m offering you a job here.”

“But my visa—”

Franc waved dismissively. “I’ve got a guy who can take care of the paperwork.”

“And ac-c-c-commodation—”

“There’s an apartment upstairs,” said Franc. “I can make that part of the deal.”

But instead of resolving Sam’s concerns, Franc seemed only to be compounding them. Sam lowered his face as a red blush appeared, first on his neck, then steadily, inexorably, bloomed on his cheeks.

“I just couldn’t do it,” he told Franc. “Even if everything else was … ”

Leaning forward in his chair, Franc eyeballed him. “Why not?”

Sam stared miserably at the floor.

“You can tell me,” Franc said, softening his tone.

Sam shook his head slowly.

After a pause, Franc tried a different tack. “Trust me—I’m a Buddhist.”

Sam smiled sadly.

“I’m not leaving here”—Franc managed to combine both sympathy and insistence in his tone—“until you tell me.”

He sat back in his chair, as though preparing for a long wait. Sam’s blush deepened a shade. Then, after the lengthiest pause, eyes still fixed to the floor, Sam murmured, “When the store in Century City closed, I was laid off.”

“You said.”

“Thing is, not everyone was laid off. A few were kept on and redeployed.” Sam hung his head in shame.

“And you’re thinking—?”

“If I’d been any good at my job, I would have been kept on, too.”

“They kept the top performers, did they?” Franc’s voice was tight. “What other reason? The cost of laying them off? Were they long-term employees?”

Sam shrugged. “I guess. Most of them. But you can see how … bad I am with people. I’d be no good at it, Franc.” He finally managed the very briefest glance in Franc’s direction. “At school, I was always the last kid left when the others picked sports teams. At college, I could never get a date. I’m just not a people person. I’d be a disaster.”

As Franc regarded the pitiable figure in front of him, a knowing, impish expression played on his lips. Silently, he gestured to Kusali to bring him an espresso.

“Yeah, I agree,” he responded after a while. “Imagine how disastrous it would be having someone who knew the category backward doing all our ordering. Or if customers asked you about a subject, and you offered them half a dozen alternatives. That could be catastrophic!”

“It’s not that—”

“Say someone came in here wanting to pick a sports team and the first person they saw was you.”

“You know I didn’t mean—”

“Or, God help us, a single woman turned up on the prowl for a date!”

“It’s about talking to people,” Sam retorted, almost fiercely. “I’m no good at it.”

“You talk to me.”

“You’re not a customer.”

“I’ve never pressured anyone into ordering a cappuccino, and I wouldn’t expect you to lay on the hard sell, if that’s what you mean,” said Franc.

The two of them looked at each other evenly before Franc said, “Either the bookstore idea is going to work, or it’s not. I believe you’re the right man for the job, even if you don’t believe it yourself.”