The Dalai Lama's Cat

by David Michie

  “If we allow ourselves to get too caught up in consumerism, we risk destroying all this,” the actress said, gesturing around us.

  His Holiness nodded in agreement. “You have very good motivation—giving without expecting to receive something back.”

  “Oh, I’m not concerned about that. I feel lucky to be able to give.”

  As the Dalai Lama chuckled, she regarded him inquiringly. “Don’t you think so?”

  “Very fortunate,” His Holiness agreed. “But lucky? Perhaps not so much. In Buddhism, we follow the principle of karma, the law of cause and effect. There can be no effect, such as success, without a cause.”

  “I have worked at my career for many years,” she conceded. “I’ve been through some pretty rough times.”

  “We would call things like hard work ‘conditions,’” the Dalai Lama said, “not causes. Conditions are needed, certainly, for karma to germinate, just as a tree requires soil and moisture and heat to grow. But without a karmic cause, without that initial seed, it doesn’t matter how favorable conditions are, there can be no effect.”

  The actress was following the Dalai Lama’s words closely. The conversation had taken an unexpected turn, as it often does when His Holiness senses that someone would benefit from a particular insight.

  “If hard work is only a condition, then what is the karmic cause for success?” she asked.

  His Holiness gave her a look of immense benevolence. “Generosity,” he answered. “The success you currently enjoy arises from your past generosity. And the generosity you are practicing now means that you will enjoy more success in the future.”

  We had been walking along the path for some minutes—farther than I had ever ventured on my own—when we came to a place where the forest suddenly stopped, giving way to a scarred moonscape of bald rock and sandy soil, with only a few, long-dead tree stumps left of what had once been lush vegetation.

  His Holiness and the actress paused for a moment. Several holes had already been dug in preparation for a tree-planting ceremony. Pine saplings stood beside the holes, along with some wheelbarrows of soil. Journalists were assembled in readiness, cameras trained on the pair as they made their way out of the forest and across the wasteland.

  As cameras whirred and members of the entourage closed in behind us, I felt a sudden need to attend to the call of nature. Being a cat of customarily high standards when it comes to such matters, I decided to look for a place that offered privacy and loose soil. A large banner bearing the logo of the actress’s charity was stretched across the area where photos would be taken later. It seemed to provide the perfect screening.

  Unnoticed, I ducked behind the banner. In the quietness back there, I discovered row upon row of fir saplings, just like the ones about to be ceremonially planted. Rising behind them was every cat’s dream—a large mound of rich, loamy potting soil.

  The very sight of it made me spring into action and scamper up the side with kittenish glee. I scattered soil this way and that as I clambered toward the summit, relishing my discovery. Once atop the mound, I sniffed at the earth, searching for a place of maximum comfort.

  It was calm and quiet under the forest canopy as I sat meditatively. The early morning air—crisp, pine-scented—was bright with the mellifluous chorus of dawn birds. In the distance, I could hear a voice—the actress’s?—making an announcement, followed by a smattering of applause.

  And then it happened. The banner, and all my privacy, suddenly fell away. A moment of planned drama designed to reveal the full scale of the reforestation project instead was focused on me.

  Don’t get me wrong. We cats are not prudish. But nor do we like to make an exhibition of ourselves—especially not in front of the assembled world media.

  For a moment the only sound was the clicking and whirring of cameras. Then a ripple of laughter passed through the gathering. His Holiness was one of the first to chuckle. Then the actress said something about the soil now being well fertilized.

  My only concern, however, was to get away as fast as possible. I descended the earth mound even faster than I’d climbed it and scrambled into the undergrowth. Without pausing, I rushed back toward the temple and across the courtyard to the safety of home.

  I had discovered a way of gaining access to the quarters I shared with the Dalai Lama that didn’t involve waiting for anyone to open a door. Slipping into the ground-floor laundry, I hopped up onto a shelf and then walked along a ledge to a window that opened into the dining room. There, exhausted by the early morning exertions, I curled up in a large armchair and fell asleep.

  I was awakened by the delicious aroma of grilled steak, prepared in the way that just one person could possibly cook it. Only when I lifted my head did I become aware that the dining room was now occupied. The Dalai Lama had returned to other duties, but he had left the actress and several members of the reforestation entourage in the care of Tenzin and Lobsang, the translator, and the translator’s assistant. They were now sitting around the table eating a hearty breakfast of steak and eggs, while Mrs. Trinci fussed over them, offering extra servings of fried mushrooms, onion rings, and French toast. Seeing me stir, she soon returned with a small, white china dish on which she had thoughtfully arranged several bite-size portions of steak. She placed it on the floor beside me.

  As we all attacked our breakfast with gusto, the conversation at the table moved from the tree-planting ceremony to the reforestation campaign and the actress’s busy calendar for the rest of the year. Then, after a pause, she mused, “I had the most interesting conversation with His Holiness earlier about karma. It’s not a subject we know much about in the West.”

  Tenzin had been following the actress ever since his days as a student at Oxford, and he relished the opportunity to talk to her. “Yes, that has always struck me as a little strange. The law of cause and effect is the assumed basis of all Western technology. Nothing is causeless; everything occurs as the result of something else. But as soon as one ventures beyond the immediate, material realm, Westerners talk about luck, fate, or divine intervention.”

  The group digested this in silence. “I suppose,” continued Tenzin, “the difficulty is that karma is not instantly apparent. It can take time for causes to yield effects. Because of this, it may seem that there is no relationship between cause and effect.”

  “Yes,” agreed the actress. “His Holiness was saying that whatever wealth or success one enjoys in the present moment arises from previous generosity, not from hard work, or taking risks, or pursuing opportunities that are conditions rather than causes.”

  “True,” agreed Tenzin. “For karma to ripen, you need both—both the causes and the conditions.”

  “It’s no secret among our little group here”—the actress gestured to her fellow campaigners—“that a curious thing happened the year I made a significant financial donation to the reforestation campaign.”

  There were knowing smiles around the table.

  “I made the donation in May. Then, in December, I received exactly the same amount in a dividend I could never have foreseen. A lot of people said it was karma.”

  Everyone at the table laughed.

  The actress turned to Tenzin. “Would that be the correct interpretation?”

  “I can understand why people might think that,” he replied. “But it’s important not to be too literal. Because you give someone something one day doesn’t mean you have created the cause to receive exactly the same thing another day. Karma operates not so much as some external credit-and-debit ledger but more as an energy, a charge that grows over time. This is how even small acts of generosity, especially when motivated by the best intention, can become causes for much greater wealth in the future.”

  The actress and her colleagues were studying him closely.

  “Where it gets interesting,” Tenzin continued, “is that in giving, we not only create the causes for future wealth, we also create the conditions for the ripening of whatever wealth karma we alre
ady possess. Hard work and shrewd business dealings are conditions for wealth but so too is generosity.”

  “There’s logic to what you say,” said the actress. “And it interests me that Jesus also said, ‘As you sow, so shall you reap.’”

  “The notion of karma was widely accepted in the earliest days of Christianity,” agreed Tenzin. “Not only were important symbols imported from the East, such as the sign of the fish and the halo”—he gestured to a wall hanging of Buddha crowned by a brilliant azure halo—“but it seems to me that the central teachings of loving thy neighbor, having compassion, and the like may also have made their way along the Old Silk Road two thousand years ago.”

  The looks of concentration on the visitors’ faces were keen.

  “One thing I don’t understand about karma,” the actress said, “is where it all happens. If there is no God deciding to punish or reward, and no cosmic computer keeping a record, where is it all happening?”

  “That question goes to the heart of it,” replied Tenzin. “It is all happening in the continuum of our minds. Our experience of reality is a lot more subjective than we generally realize. We are not simply passive receptors of events. At all times we are actively projecting our own personal version of reality onto the world around us. Two people in the same circumstances will have very different experiences of what happened. This is because they have different karma.

  “The law of cause and effect,” Tenzin continued, “says that, step by step, we can create the causes to experience reality in a way that results in greater contentment and abundance, and we can avoid the causes of unhappiness and lack of resources. Buddha himself summed it up best when he said: ‘The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings … As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.’”

  A short while later, the actress and her party rose from the table, thanking Tenzin and the others for all their help. They were gathering their jackets and scarves when the actress looked over at the armchair on which I was seated, legs tucked neatly under my body.

  “Good heavens! Is that the cat … you know … from this morning?”

  Tenzin glanced over at me with the same poker face he had worn on the afternoon he had discovered me seated on the lotus cushion at Café Franc.

  “She looks similar,” he conceded.

  “I’ve never seen Snow Lion venture so far away,” said Lobsang.

  “Himalayan cats are quite popular here,” ventured Lobsang’s assistant.

  The actress shook her head with a wry smile. “Well, it certainly was an unexpected performance.”

  Late that afternoon, Tenzin was briefing the Dalai Lama on the day’s events as the two of them enjoyed their green tea, accompanied on this occasion by wafer-thin biscotti baked by the ever-bountiful Mrs. Trinci. Having discussed most of the day’s activities, His Holiness turned to the tree-planting ceremony.

  “How did the breakfast go? I hope the visitors were happy with the outcome.”

  “It went very well, Your Holiness. And our guest phoned me just a short while ago to say how thrilled she is with the awareness being created.”

  “There were a lot of media crews this morning,” observed the Dalai Lama. “I have never seen so many television cameras at Jokhang!”

  “The event was well covered by the media,” said Tenzin. “But the real booster is a YouTube video that instantly went viral. Apparently, it already has more than ten million hits.”

  “For a tree-planting ceremony?” His Holiness raised his eyebrows.

  “It begins with that. But the real star of the show”—Tenzin turned to look in my direction—“is our little Rinpoche.”

  The Dalai Lama burst out laughing. Then, making an effort to contain himself, he said, “Perhaps we should not laugh. I am not sure who got more of a surprise, our Rinpoche or the journalists.”

  Coming over to where I was sitting, he scooped me up in his arms and stroked me slowly. “This morning when we all woke up, none of us guessed you were about to become—how do you say?—an international sensation. But you have created more awareness of the problem facing forests in a single morning than some people create in a whole lifetime.”

  I began to purr.

  “Most interesting karma.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Fur balls. There are few things more unpleasant, don’t you agree, dear reader?

  Oh, come, come. There’s no need to play the innocent with me! Just because you’re human doesn’t make you immune to self-obsession. Is it not the case that from time to time you experience excessive concern about how you come across to other beings? That you obsess about your clothing, footwear, adornments, and grooming, all of which have rather more to do with an image you wish to project to the world than matters of simple practicality?

  When talking about yourself, that subtle aside about the fancy brand of merchandise recently acquired, the romantic attention you are receiving, or the extraordinary yoga position you are now capable of assuming—is it not the case that such remarks are also intended to conjure up a particular impression you wish to create about yourself?

  And who, pray tell, occupies the majority of your thoughts from the moment you wake up till the time you go to sleep? Who, exactly, is the cause of your greatest anxiety and stress? Can you think of a certain party—perhaps not so far from the space you currently occupy—who at some time has become so caught up in a downward spiral of self-obsession that despite all their frenetic licking, scratching, and grooming, despite all their crazed efforts to feel better about themselves, all they have succeeded in doing is ingesting such large quantities of self-regarding detritus that they have made themselves sick—quite literally, perhaps?

  If an uncomfortable lump is forming in your throat simply from reading these few paragraphs, then you most certainly understand the vexation of fur balls. If not, you are clearly a better adjusted being than most, in which case I apologize for impugning your character. You certainly have no need to read this chapter, so may I suggest you proceed immediately to the next?

  Having been torn away from my mother and family at an early age, there are certain aspects of cat behavior of which I was wholly ignorant. Which was why my first fur-ball experience was as unexpected as it was unpleasant. One of the burdens of being a sumptuously beautiful cat of the kind that occasionally graces the boxes of the most expensive Belgian pralines is that grooming can become a compulsive activity. It’s all too easy to get caught up in a cycle of licking and preening without realizing what the consequences will be.

  The morning I spent on the filing cabinet, vigorously engaged in just this activity, Tenzin glanced sharply in my direction several times, and Chogyal even came over and tried to distract me—to no avail. The initial tingle I had felt seemed to grow more and more intense and widespread until I couldn’t stop licking!

  And then it struck. Suddenly, I knew I had to get down onto the floor. Making my way across the office, directly past Kyi Kyi’s basket, I had no sooner reached the corridor when I felt my stomach turn. It was as though all my insides wanted to come out. I crouched low on the carpet, my whole body racked with wheezing. The rhythm of the violent spasms increased rapidly until … well, it’s probably best that I spare you the details.

  Leaping to his feet, Chogyal seized a copy of that day’s newspaper. He used the women’s fashion section to clean up the rug on which I had deposited copious quantities of my own fur. I slunk to the kitchen for a cleansing drink, and by the time I made my way back, there was no sign of the horror that had befallen me in the calm sanctuary of the hallway.

  I resumed my place on the filing cabinet, falling into a deep slumber. There’s nothing like a good, long sleep to allow unpleasantness to recede into the past.

  Except that on that occasion, I was awoken by a powerful and disorientating f
ragrance. Was that not the unmistakable aroma of Kouros, which usually preceded Franc by several yards? But I wasn’t at Café Franc! Moments later came confirmation in the form of Franc’s unmistakably San Franciscan cadences.

  Neither Chogyal nor Tenzin was in the office, but there, in the door frame, was the round-eared silhouette of Marcel. Moments later, Chogyal arrived with a leash. Stirring Kyi Kyi from his slumbers, he clipped the leash to his collar and led him to where Marcel was straining at his own lead, tail wagging in a frenzy of anticipation.

  Franc and Chogyal talked in the corridor, while the two dogs commenced sniffing each other’s backsides. Completely absorbed in what was happening, Franc didn’t notice me on my viewing platform, watching events unfold. Although I had been disconcerted by the unexpected arrival of Tenzin in Café Franc some weeks earlier, as I watched events unfold now, it all began to make a kind of sense.

  Franc was on his best behavior. Formally dressed in a dark jacket and polished brogues, he was as solicitous as when the most important of VIPs appeared in his café. Chogyal, meantime, was his usual unaffected self, as he related the story of how Kyi Kyi had come to take up residence at Jokhang.

  The men took the dogs for a walk in the courtyard outside. Crossing to a window that afforded a better view, I continued to watch the proceedings. Free of their leashes, Marcel and Kyi Kyi chased each other, playing and scuffling. It seemed that the two dogs could indeed become friends.

  On their return, Chogyal and Franc began discussing Kyi Kyi’s eating and sleeping habits. Then I heard Chogyal saying, “All of us, including His Holiness, would be very grateful if you would consider—”

  “No need to consider,” Franc assured him. “The two dogs are going to get on fine. It will be my honor.”

  Chogyal looked down at Kyi Kyi with a smile. “He has been here only a short time, but we will miss him.”

  “I can bring him back to visit,” Franc replied.

  At that moment the door to His Holiness’s office opened and out he came.