The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Art of Purring

by David Michie

  “Closure,” chorused the group behind her.

  “Dad wanted something very simple at the crematorium,” said Franc.

  Beryle was having none of it. “Funerals are for those of us left behind,” she declared. “We’re a Catholic family. Well”—she looked pointedly at Franc—“most of us are.”

  “None of that sky-burial stuff,” pronounced the same scratchy male voice from behind.

  Franc was shaking his head. “I’ve never suggested …”

  “That’s what you Buddhists believe in, isn’t it?” said a wizened, white-haired figure, eyes red and teeth missing, who was homing in on the computer. “Chop people into little pieces and feed them to the vultures? No, sir.”

  “This is Uncle Mick,” Franc said.

  Uncle Mick scrutinized the computer screen for a few long moments before rebuking Franc, “They’re not Indian!”

  “I never said they were,” Franc protested gently, but Mick had already turned his back and was shuffling away.

  Franc raised his eyebrows pointedly before saying, “I’m hoping to get out to feed birds in the park tomorrow.”

  Buddhists believe that acts of generosity benefit those who have died, when dedicated by people who have a close karmic connection to the deceased.

  “Birds?” Beryle was incredulous. “What about us? What about your own flesh and blood? Plenty of time for that sort of nonsense after the funeral.”

  “I’d better go,” Franc said quickly. “I’ll call again when I’m alone.”

  As Serena and Sam said good-bye, Uncle Mick’s voice rose. “Birds? I knew it! There’ll be no sky burial as long as I’m around!”

  After the call ended, Sam and Serena turned toward each other.

  “Looks like he’s having a rough time,” said Serena.

  Sam nodded. “At least he knows he did the right thing by going home. Though he could be back a lot sooner than everyone thought,” added Sam, his expression thoughtful.

  “Who knows?” Serena ran her fingers through her hair. “If he has to deal with the estate he could be there for a while yet.”

  Sensing a movement she looked down to find Marcel, Franc’s French bulldog, at her feet.

  “How did he know?” she wondered, smiling at Sam.

  “Heard his voice?”

  “From under the counter?” She looked over at the dogs’ basket. It seemed unlikely that the sound of Franc’s voice had traveled that far.

  “No,” she said, kneeling down to pat him. “I think dogs can sense these things. Can’t you, my little friend?”

  Soon after that came alarming news much closer to home, news that struck at the very heart of Namgyal—more specifically, at the office where I oversaw the activities of the Dalai Lama’s executive assistants. There was usually something going on in there that I would observe from on top of the filing cabinet behind Tenzin, which offered a panoramic view not only of the office itself but also of everyone who came and went from His Holiness’s quarters. Consequently, when the Dalai Lama was out of town, I spent many of my days in the office, watching the to and fro of official business at Jokhang.

  Chogyal and Tenzin tried to take their vacations during His Holiness’s lengthier absences, and on this occasion it had been Chogyal’s turn for time off. Several days earlier he had left to visit family in Ladakh. Two days ago, Chogyal had contacted Tenzin with an urgent message for Geshe Wangpo. With customary efficiency, Tenzin had immediately summoned two novice monks who were undertaking cleaning chores down the corridor.

  I had known Tashi and Sashi from my earliest days in the world, when their treatment of me had been shabby, to say the least. Since then they had made great efforts to redeem themselves and were now fervent in their concern for my well-being.

  “I have an urgent message for you to deliver,” Tenzin told them as they entered the office.

  “Yes, sir!” they replied in unison.

  “It’s critical you give this to Geshe Wangpo personally,” Tenzin emphasized, handing a sealed envelope to ten-year-old Tashi, the elder of the two.

  “Yes, sir!” Tashi repeated.

  “No delay, no diversion,” said Tenzin sternly, “even if you are called by a senior monk. This is official business of His Holiness’s office.”

  “Yes, sir,” the boys chorused, their faces glowing with the importance of their unexpected mission.

  “Go, now,” Tenzin commanded.

  They turned to each other briefly, before Tashi said in a piping voice, “Just one question, sir.”

  Tenzin raised his eyebrows.

  “How is HHC, sir?”

  Tenzin turned to where I lay sprawled on the filing cabinet. I blinked my eyes open, just the once.

  “As you can see, still alive.” His tone was droll. “Now hurry!”

  No sooner was I back from the café that afternoon and up on the filing cabinet giving my charcoal ears a quick wash than who should appear on the other side of the office but Geshe Wangpo himself. Geshe Wangpo was not only one of Namgyal Monastery’s most revered lamas but also one of its most intimidating. An old-school Geshe—the title refers to the highest academic degree for Buddhist monks—he was in his late 70s and had studied in Tibet before the Chinese invasion. He had the round, muscular build typical of a Tibetan, as well as a penetrating intellect and little tolerance for slothfulness of body or mind. He was also a monk of immense compassion, whose love for his students was never doubted.

  Such was Geshe Wangpo’s commanding physical presence that the moment he appeared at the door, Tenzin rose from his chair and greeted him, “Geshe-la!”

  The lama waved for him to sit down. “Thank you for your message two days ago,” Geshe Wangpo said, his expression grave. “Chogyal was seriously ill.”

  “So I heard,” said Tenzin. “He was fine when he left here. Perhaps he picked up something on the bus?”

  Geshe Wangpo shook his head. “It was his heart.” He didn’t elaborate. “He deteriorated overnight. He was much weaker but remained conscious. When I called him again early this morning, however, he was unable to speak and barely alive. Unfortunately for us, his time had come. He couldn’t move, but he could hear my voice. His physical death was at nine o’clock, but he remained in clear light for more than five hours.”

  It took Tenzin—and me—the longest time to digest this news. Chogyal, our Chogyal, dead? He had been bustling around this office only three days ago. And still so young: he couldn’t have been much older than 35.

  “He had a very good death,” said Geshe Wangpo. “We can be confident that his continuum has moved forward in a positive direction. Even so, there will be special prayers in the temple tonight, and you may find it useful to make offerings.”

  Tenzin nodded. “Of course.”

  As Geshe Wangpo looked from Tenzin to me and back again, his usually stern demeanor softened into an expression of great tenderness. “It is natural to feel sadness, grief, when we lose someone we care for. And Chogyal was a very, very kind man. But you do not have to feel sorry for Chogyal’s sake. He lived well. Even though death came unexpectedly, he had nothing to fear. He died well, too. He set a good example for us all.”

  With that, Geshe Wangpo turned and left the office.

  Tenzin leaned forward in his chair and closed his eyes for a while, then got up and came over to the filing cabinet. He reached up and stroked me. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, HHC?” His eyes welled with tears. “Dear, kind Chogyal.”

  A short while later Lobsang appeared. He crossed the room to where Tenzin was still stroking me. “Geshe-la just told me the news,” he said. “I am very sorry.”

  The two men embraced, Lobsang in his monk’s robes, Tenzin in his dark suit. As they separated, Lobsang said, “Five hours in the clear light!”

  “Yes, that’s what Geshe-la said.”

  The process of dying is the subject of detailed preparation in Tibetan Buddhism. I often heard His Holiness talk about clear light as the natural state of our
mind when it’s free of all thought. Because it is a state beyond concept, words can only point to the experience of it; they cannot describe the indescribable. But the words sometimes used to suggest this state are boundless, radiant, blissful. It is a state imbued with love and compassion.

  Seasoned meditators can experience clear light while still alive, so that when death comes, instead of fearing the loss of their personal identity, they are able to abide in this state of blissful nonduality. With such a level of control that it is possible to direct the mind to what happens next, rather than being propelled by the force of habitual mental activity, by karma.

  Even though someone has been declared dead from a medical point of view, while abiding in a state of clear light their body remains supple and their healthy coloring remains. There is no putrefaction of the body or loss of body fluids. To others, it looks as if the deceased is simply asleep. Great yogis have been known to remain in clear light for days, even weeks.

  Geshe Wangpo’s assurance that Chogyal had been able to abide in the clear light was therefore news of the utmost significance. His life may have been short, but what he had done with it was beyond measure: he would be able to assume some control over his destiny.

  Tenzin reached into his drawer, taking out a mobile phone and putting it in his pocket—always a prelude to his leaving the office.

  “I’m going to feed some birds,” he told Lobsang.

  “Good idea,” the other monk said. “I’ll come with you, if I may.”

  The two of them walked toward the door.

  “That’s the main thing right now, isn’t it?” observed Lobsang. “Doing whatever we can to help the one who has left us.”

  Tenzin nodded. “And even if he doesn’t need our help so much, it is good to have something positive to focus on.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Lobsang. “Something instead of oneself.”

  The sound of their voices retreated as they made their way down the corridor. I was left alone on the filing cabinet, thinking about the fact that I would never see Chogyal again. He would never walk through the door, sit in the chair opposite Tenzin, and take out the yellow highlighter that he thought was a pen for marking documents, but I knew was really a toy that could be flicked from the desktop onto the carpet.

  I thought, too, about the last time Chogyal had held me, and I had stuck my claws into his arm. Unhappy with him for removing the beige blanket and with it the last evidence of my daughter, I had been mean and miserable. It was not the last memory of me I would have wanted him to have, but it was too late to change. I could only console myself with the knowledge that most of our time together had been happy. When karma drew us together in a future life, as it had in this one, the energy between us would be positive.

  From the sill that evening I watched the Namgyal monks make their way across the courtyard alongside the townspeople streaming through the monastery gates. I hadn’t realized that the prayers for Chogyal were open to the public, or how well-known and well-loved Chogyal had been in the community.

  As more and more people arrived, I decided that I, too, would attend. I made my way downstairs and across the courtyard, and it wasn’t long before I was ambling up the temple steps with a group of elderly nuns.

  There is something especially magical about the temple at night. And that night, the large statues of Buddha at the front of the temple, with their beautiful, gold-painted faces, were illuminated by a sea of flickering butter lamps, every one dedicated for the benefit of Chogyal and all living beings. Other traditional offerings—food, incense, perfume, and flowers—were part of the same feast of the senses that made my whiskers tingle with delight.

  I looked around at the great wall thangkas with their vivid depictions of deities like Maitreya, the Buddha of the future; Manjushri, the Buddha of wisdom; Green Tara; Mahakhala, the Dharma protector; the Medicine Buddha; and the revered teacher Lama Tsongkhapa. In the subdued nighttime lighting, the figures seemed somehow closer than during the day, hovering presences looking down from their lotus thrones.

  I had seldom seen as many people in the temple as were there that night. From the elderly lamas and rinpoches sitting at the front to the other monks and nuns and the townspeople seated farther back, they took up every available space. One of the nuns I had arrived with found a place for me on a low shelf at the back of the temple from which I could survey everything that happened. People lit butter lamps, brought their hands together in prayer, and murmured to one another in low voices, giving the evening a powerful sense of occasion. Yes, there was a feeling of loss, of course, and deep sadness but another, quite different undercurrent as well. Word of Chogyal remaining in clear light had obviously gone out, and amid the grief there was a quiet pride, even celebration, that he had had such a good death.

  Geshe Wangpo’s arrival was greeted with an immediate, awed hush. He took his place on the teaching throne—the raised seat at the front of the temple—and led the assembled in a chant before guiding us in a short meditation. There was silence in the temple but not stillness. Rather, a curious energy seemed to pervade the space. Was it just my feline sensitivity that felt the power of hundreds of minds focused on Chogyal’s well-being? Could the collective intention of so many accomplished meditators who knew Chogyal so well reach out and benefit him at this very moment?

  Geshe Wangpo ended the meditation with the gentle chiming of a bell. After reading a short message from the Dalai Lama, who had sent his personal condolences and special blessings from America, he talked about Chogyal in the traditional Tibetan way, speaking about his family in Kham, a province in Eastern Tibet, and the monastic studies he had begun at an early age, then reciting some of the key teachings Chogyal had received.

  Geshe Wangpo was always scrupulous about following tradition. But he also knew how to reach an audience, many of whom were not monastics but ordinary householders. “Chogyal was only thirty-five when he died,” he said softly. “If we are to learn anything from his death, and I have no doubt he would want us to, we should realize that death can strike any of us at any moment. Most of the time we don’t want to think about this. We accept that death will happen, of course, but we think of it as something that will happen far in the future. This way of thinking”—Geshe Wangpo paused for emphasis—“is unfortunate. Buddha himself said that the most important meditation of all is on death. It is not morbid, not depressing to contemplate one’s own death. Completely the opposite! It is only when we have faced the reality of our own death that we really know how to live.

  “Living as though we are going to go on forever—this is a tragic waste,” he continued. “One of my students, a lady who suffered from stage four cancer, came very close to death last year. When I visited her in the hospital, she was just a frail shadow in a bed, hooked up to all kinds of tubes and equipment. Happily, however, she succeeded in her battle against the disease. And just recently she told me something very interesting: the disease had been the greatest gift she had ever received, she said, for the first time she truly faced her own death—and only then did she realize how precious it is simply to be alive.”

  Geshe Wangpo paused to allow his message to sink in.

  “Now she wakes up every day with a sense of profound gratitude to be here now, free of disease. Every day for her is a bonus. She is more content and at peace with herself. She doesn’t worry so much about material things, knowing that these are of only limited, short-term value. She has become a very enthusiastic meditator because she knows from direct experience that whatever happens to her body, consciousness remains.

  “The practices given to us in the Dharma help us take charge of our consciousness. Instead of being victims of mental agitation and habitual patterns of thinking, we have a precious opportunity to free ourselves and realize the true nature of our mind. This we can take with us. Not our friends, not our loved ones, not our possessions. But awakening to the reality of consciousness as boundless, radiant, and beyond death is an enduring achievement. And
with that awareness we realize we have nothing to fear from death.” A mischievous smile appeared on his face. “We discover that death, like everything in life itself, is merely a concept.”

  Geshe Wangpo raised a hand to his heart. “I wish that all of my students could nearly die. There is no better wake-up call on how to live. Perhaps some students, like Chogyal, do not need this. He was a most diligent practitioner, with a warm heart and the incredibly good karma to work closely with His Holiness for some years. Those of us who have the benefit of contact with His Holiness should not underestimate this.”

  I wondered if Geshe-la was addressing this last comment to me. Sometimes when I heard him in the gompa, the monastery, it seemed that much of what he was saying was directed specifically at me. As the being who spends more time with the Dalai Lama than almost any other, what did that say about my karma?

  “We will continue to remember Chogyal in our prayers and meditations, especially for the next seven weeks,” Geshe Wangpo continued, referring to the maximum period during which it is thought that consciousness remains in the bardo, the state between the end of one existence and the start of another. “And we should thank him, in our hearts, for reminding us that life is tenuous and may end at any time,” he emphasized.

  “In the Dharma we have the term realization. A realization is when our understanding of something deepens to the point that it changes our behavior. I hope that Chogyal’s death helps us all come to the realization that we, too, will die. Such a realization helps us to let go a little, to experience deep appreciation, even awe, just to be alive. We cannot procrastinate with our Dharma practice: time is precious and we must use it wisely.

  “Those of us here tonight are among the most fortunate in the world, because we know the practices that can help transform consciousness and our experience of death itself. If we are as dedicated as Chogyal, when death comes, we will have nothing to fear. And while we are still alive … how wonderful!”