The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Art of Purring

by David Michie

  The next morning, while sitting on the sill, I noticed Tenzin crossing the courtyard half an hour earlier than usual. Instead of making his way straight to the office as he typically did, he went to the temple, where he started the day with a meditation session.

  Other changes soon followed. One day he arrived at work carrying a strange-shaped case, which he leaned against the wall behind where Chogyal used to sit. I sniffed it curiously, wondering what it could possibly contain. It was bigger than a laptop-computer case but narrower than a briefcase, with a peculiar bulge on one side.

  At lunchtime Tenzin retired to the first-aid room, where he usually ate a sandwich while we listened to the BBC World Service. On this day, however, the most peculiar range of burbles and squeaks sounded from behind the closed door, along with much reedy huffing and puffing. Later I heard him tell a curious Lobsang, “I’ve had that saxophone sitting at home for the past twenty years. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play it. One thing I’ve learned from Chogyal …” He nodded toward the chair in which Chogyal used to sit.

  “No time like the present,” agreed Lobsang. “Carpe diem!”

  And me, dear reader? Having no aspirations to play the saxophone or even the piccolo, I didn’t plan on giving up my lunchtime visits to the Himalaya Book Café. But Chogyal’s death had been an urgent reminder: Life is finite; every day is precious. And simply to wake up in good health truly is a blessing, because sickness and death can strike at a moment’s notice.

  Even though I had known this before—it was, after all, a theme His Holiness often spoke about—there is a big difference between accepting an idea and changing your behavior. I had been complacent before, but now I realized that each day of good health and freedom was another day in which to create the causes and conditions for a happier future.

  Boredom? Lethargy? They seem so irrelevant when remembering how quickly time passes. I understood with stark clarity that for a truly happy and meaningful life, it is necessary first to face death. Authentically, not just as an idea. Because after that, the twilight skies are never so resplendent, the curls of incense never so mesmerizing, the smoked salmon morsels garnished with Dijonnaise sauce down at the café never so lip-smackingly, whisker-tinglingly, tail-swishingly delicious.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was about 35 nights into the 49 for which His Holiness was scheduled to be away that I realized something had gone missing from my life. It had slipped away so gradually that I hadn’t noticed its absence until it had disappeared almost entirely: I had stopped purring.

  I would still purr when Tenzin turned his attention from the marginally important correspondence with world leaders lodged inside the filing cabinet to the far more significant being lying on top of it. And I was also unfailing in signaling my appreciation of the delicious meals served at the Himalaya Book Café.

  But apart from this sporadic incidental purring, I had remained mute for most of the past week. And it was doing me no good. Which brings me back to the central question of my investigations: Why do cats purr?

  The answer may seem perfectly obvious, but as with most other feline activities, it is more complex than it appears. Yes, we purr because we’re content. The warmth of a hearth, the intimacy of a lap, the promise of a saucer of milk—all of these may prompt our laryngeal muscles to vibrate at an impressive rate.

  But contentment is not the only trigger. Just as a human may smile when she’s feeling nervous or because she wants to appeal to your better nature, so cats may purr. A visit to the vet or a trip in the car may prompt us to purr to reassure ourselves. And should your footsteps in the kitchen lead you almost but not quite to the only cupboard of feline interest, you may well hear a throaty purr as we curl a tail suggestively around your leg or plead with a more imperative swishing around your ankles.

  Bioaccoustical researchers will tell you something else fascinating: the frequency of a cat’s purr is ideal therapy for pain relief, wound healing, and bone growth. We cats generate healing sound waves much the way electrical stimulation is used increasingly in medicine, except that we do it naturally and spontaneously for our own benefit. (Note to cat lovers: Should your darling feline seem to be purring much more than usual, perhaps it’s time to pay a visit to the vet. She may know something about her health that you do not.)

  But apart from these reasons for purring there is another reason—arguably the most important reason of them all. Just how important I hadn’t realized until Sam Goldberg left his door open by mistake.

  Few things are more intriguing to a cat than the discovery of a door, hitherto resolutely shut, that has now been left ajar. The opportunity to explore unknown, even forbidden territory is one that we are powerless to resist—which is why I got waylaid late one afternoon when I was about to make my way back to Jokhang. Hopping down from the magazine rack, I noticed that the door behind the bookstore counter was open, and I revised my plans. I knew that the door led upstairs to Sam’s apartment. When Franc had hired Sam to set up and manage the bookstore, the deal they struck included Sam’s use of the apartment, which until then had functioned as a storage area.

  Without hesitation I slipped through the crack in the door, immediately encountering a flight of stairs. They were steep and narrow, covered with musty carpet, and would take a while to climb. But ignoring the stiffness in my hips, I pressed on toward the light issuing from a second door at the top of the stairs. Also ajar, it led into Sam’s flat.

  I often wondered what Sam got up to when he went upstairs, because from my vantage point, his working life seemed rather dull. While he spent part of each day talking to customers, or opening fresh consignments from publishers, or rearranging the books on display, most of the time he remained behind the counter, glued to his computer. Exactly what he was working on was a mystery. When speaking to Serena, he sometimes used terms like inventory program, publishers’ catalogs, and accounting package. And he often joked about being a geek, liberated the moment he sat behind a keyboard.

  But for all those hours? Every day? That made me all the more curious about what I would discover at the top of the stairs.

  There was no question that Sam had an interesting mind. People often pronounced him an amazing thinker after a conversation in which they had discussed subjects like the spontaneous manifestation of Tibetan symbols on cave walls, or the similarities between the biographies and teachings of Jesus and Buddha. I wondered if his apartment would be similarly engaging.

  I was still mulling over the possibilities when I finally reached the top of the stairs. Realizing that my appearance would be unexpected, I inched forward carefully. Squeezing through the gap between the door and the doorjamb, I found myself in a large, sparsely furnished room. The stark white walls were bare, devoid of pictures. On the left side of the room there was a double bed covered with a faded blue duvet. On the wall to the right were two windows with wooden Venetian blinds. Against the wall opposite the door was a desk with three large computer monitors. Sam was sitting at the desk with his back to me. The floor around him was covered with a tangle of cables and computer equipment.

  So this was how Sam spent his evenings? Exchanging a seat in front of the screen downstairs for a seat in front of another? There was a beanbag chair in one corner of the apartment. But from the looks of things, most of Sam’s time was spent at the computer. Right now he was involved in a video conference call, and there were thumbnail images of the other participants on the monitor screens. I’d heard him explain to Serena that this was one way he kept up with authors, managing sometimes to coax any who were traveling through India to visit the store for a talk or a book signing.

  With Sam engrossed in video conferencing, I glanced around the room. My attention was drawn to a cluster of small, round, neon-yellow objects that I instantly recognized from the sports segment on TV: golf balls! Beside them, resting against the door frame, was a putter.

  Stealthily I crept toward the balls. When I was a short distance away I crouched down in
the stance of a jungle beast and then pounced on the balls, sending one skating across the floor at high speed. It hit the baseboard on the opposite wall with a sharp thwack.

  Sam spun around and caught me with my paws wrapped around another ball and my mouth open as if to take a bite.

  “Rinpoche!” he called out, looking from me to the open door. I flicked away the ball and scampered around the room in a mad frenzy before leaping onto his bed.

  He grinned.

  “What’s happening?” a voice said from one of the speakers.

  Sam trained his camera on me for a moment. “Unexpected visitor.”

  From around the world came a chorus of ooh-ing and ah-ing.

  “I didn’t know you were into cats,” said a man with an American accent.

  Sam shook his head. “Not as a rule, but this one is rather special. You see, she’s the Dalai Lama’s Cat.”

  “And she visits you in your home?” someone asked, incredulous.

  “Totally awesome!” exclaimed another.

  “She’s adorable,” cooed yet another.

  There was great excitement for a few moments as everyone took time to digest this globally significant news. Once normal conversation had resumed, I returned to the golf balls. I hadn’t realized how reassuringly solid they were. And such heft! I now knew why golfers could send them flying long distances.

  I flicked another ball across the floor toward a black plastic cup. It overshot its mark, hit the baseboard, and came hurtling back toward me. Startled, I leapt aside just in time. Apparently, golfing could be unpredictable and dangerous in ways I had never imagined.

  Bored with golf, I wandered down a corridor to find the kitchen. Unlike the kitchens at Jokhang, which were in constant use and in which an enticing medley of scents could always be detected, Sam’s kitchen was sterile and uninteresting, probably because he ate most of his meals downstairs. I noticed a few empty beer cans and an ice cream carton in the garbage. No intrigue here.

  I was wandering around looking for more rooms—there weren’t any—as someone on the conference call was saying, “Psychology is still a young science. It was just over a hundred years ago that Freud coined the term psychoanalysis. Since then most of the focus has been on helping people with serious mental challenges. It’s only recently that we’ve seen trends like Positive Psychology, in which the focus is not on going from minus ten to zero but from zero to plus ten.”

  “Maximizing our potential,” chimed in someone.

  “A state of greatest flourishing,” added someone else.

  “What I don’t get,” Sam was saying, “is why, after all the research in recent decades, there still doesn’t seem to be a formula for happiness.”

  I paused. Formula for happiness? That was so Sam, with his programs and codes and algorithms. As if happiness could be reduced to a collection of scientific data.

  “There is an equation,” the man in the center of Sam’s screen was saying. “But like most formulas, it needs some explaining.”

  Really? I wasn’t sure if the Dalai Lama knew of such a formula, but the very idea that such a thing might exist made me prick up my ears.

  “The formula is H equals S plus C plus V,” said the man, as he keyed it in and it came up on the screen. “Happiness equals what’s called your biological set point, or S, plus the conditions of your life, C, plus V, your voluntary activities. According to this theory, each individual has a set point, or average level of happiness. Some people are naturally upbeat and cheerful, putting them at one end of the bell curve. Others are temperamentally gloomy and fall to the other end. The vast majority of us fall somewhere in the middle. This set point is our personal norm, the base level of subjective well-being we tend to return to after the triumphs and tragedies and day-to-day ups and downs of our lives. Winning the lottery might make you happier for a while, but the research shows that eventually you are likely to revert to your set point.”

  “Is there a way to change the set point?” asked a young woman with a British accent. “Or are we just stuck with it?”

  I hopped from the floor to the bed, and the bed to the desk, so I could follow the discussion better.

  “Meditation,” said a man with a shiny bald head and glowing skin. “It has a powerful impact. Studies have shown that the set points of experienced meditators are right off the scale.”

  Yes, I thought, His Holiness certainly knows about that!

  “Turning to conditions, C,” continued the man who had been explaining set-point theory, “there are some things about our conditions we can’t control—gender, age, race, sexual orientation, for example. Depending on where you’re born in the world, those factors may or may not have a huge impact on your likely level of happiness.

  “As for V, the voluntary variables,” he said, “these include activities you choose to pursue, such as exercising, meditating, learning to play the piano, getting involved with a cause. Such activities require ongoing attention, which means that you don’t habituate to them in the way that you might get used to a new car, say, or a new girlfriend and lose interest when the novelty wears off.”

  This prompted chuckling around the world.

  He went on. “When you take the happiness formula overall, you can see that while there are certain things that can’t be changed, there are others that can. The key focus should be on things you can change that will have a positive impact on your feeling of well-being.”

  A distant crash of cymbals and the blast of a Tibetan horn reminded me of the ceremony being held at Namgyal Monastery that day. All the monks were being treated to a celebratory meal in honor of several newly graduated Geshes who had successfully come to the end of their 14 years of study. In the past, I had found that spending time near the monastery kitchens on such occasions proved very rewarding.

  Hopping down from Sam’s desk and heading toward the stairs, I reflected on the happiness formula. It was an interesting perspective, and not so different from what His Holiness used to say. Contemporary research from the West and ancient wisdom from the East seemed to be arriving at the same place.

  Several days later Bronnie Wellenksy arrived at the café with a new flyer to be posted on the notice board. Bronnie, the 20-something Canadian coordinator of an education charity, used the café notice board to display posters for tourists, announcing activities like visits to craft centers and concerts by local performers. She was boisterous, jolly, and always on the move, her shoulder-length hair perennially disheveled. Although she had been in Dharamsala for only about six months, she was already remarkably well connected.

  “This one’s perfect for you,” she called out to Sam, as she pinned a flyer to the board.

  Sam looked up from his screen.

  “What’s that?”

  “We need volunteer teachers to give local teenage kids basic computer training. It boosts their employability.”

  “I already have a job,” replied Sam.

  “It’s very part time,” Bronnie said. “Like two evenings a week. Even one evening would be great.”

  Having secured the flyer in a prominent position, she made her way across to the bookstore counter.

  “I’ve n-never taught anybody before,” Sam told her. “I mean, I’m not qualified. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “At the beginning,” she shot back, responding to his uncertain expression with a dazzling smile. “It doesn’t matter that you’ve never taught before. These kids know nothing. They don’t come from families with computers at home. Anything you could help them with would be so, like, amazing. Sorry, I don’t know your name,” she said, reaching her hand across the counter. “I’m Bronnie.”

  “Sam.”

  As he shook her hand, he seemed to notice her for the very first time.

  “I’ve seen you working at the computer,” she said.

  He held up his arms in mock surrender. “A geek.”

  “Didn’t mean it that way,” she said cheerily.

  “But it�
��s true,’” he countered, with a shrug.

  Holding his gaze she said, “You have no idea how much you could help these kids. Even the stuff you take for granted would be a revelation.”

  I knew the most likely cause of Sam’s reluctance. In the past he had told both Franc and Geshe Wangpo that he just wasn’t “a people person.” And here was Bronnie asking him to stand up in front of a group and teach.

  Bronnie hadn’t taken her eyes off his and was still smiling warmly. “Of all the voluntary activities you could do, this would use your abilities best of all.”

  It was the V word that did it. Voluntary. Little did Bronnie know that she had hit on one of the key variables in the happiness formula.

  “I would help, of course,” she offered.

  Could she see his resistance beginning to crack?

  “The Internet people across the road are donating their facilities,” Bronnie explained. “It would only be one hour, in the late afternoon. Basic word processing, perhaps spreadsheets—that kind of thing.”

  Sam was nodding.

  “Oh, please say you’ll do it!” she gushed.

  A smile formed at the corner of Sam’s mouth. “Okay, okay!” he said, looking down at the counter. “I’ll do it.”

  Sam took his teaching responsibilities very seriously. He had soon downloaded some tutorials for beginners, watched some YouTube videos on Teaching 101, and had begun making notes. Several times during quiet moments in the café I heard him asking the waiters about this word or that concept: was it something that young Indians would understand?

  I don’t know when Sam’s first computer skills class took place. It must have been one afternoon after I had already gone home to Jokhang. But soon a perceptible change came over him. He was spending less time behind the counter in the bookstore and more time talking to customers. Something about his posture had changed, too. He looked taller somehow.