Lunch with Buddha

by Merullo, Roland

  To make a bad generalization, I think Eastern thought is primarily inner-focused. The pejorative term is “navel gazing.” Well, I think we could use a bit more navel gazing in our society. We do so many wonderful things in the external world—photos from Mars, medicines for AIDS and other illnesses, remarkable surgeries, incredible technological gizmos. But when Steve Jobs (I may be wrong, but I believe he had a Buddhist practice) was dying he is reputed to have said, “Oh, wow!” As if he saw something. I somehow doubt that what he saw was the next generation of the iPad. I think it was some interior experience, some wider understanding of the miracle of life. Except in its mystical tradition—which is vast and of long standing but largely ignored in this society—Christianity is outer-focused. It’s too often all about behavior and sin and loud prayer. Okay. But what Rinpoche does for Otto is to take that foundation of good behavior and show him that it is a starting point, not an end point. “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” Jesus said that, not Buddha. But it’s the Easterners who pursue it more avidly, and I think we would benefit from that pursuit.

  MQ: Please tell me there will be a Dinner with Buddha and that I will be able to read it relatively soon.

  RM: Well, first, thank you for these superb questions, and for your friendship and your books. As for Dinner, well, I have laid the groundwork for that at the end of Lunch. Just need to come up with another route, a part of the country we haven’t covered. I’ve been to 49 states, which leaves only Alaska, but I somehow don’t see an Alaskan road trip in our future. Maybe I’ll take the whole cast of characters overseas. I’m open to suggestion.

  Matthew Quick (aka Q) is the author of The Silver Linings Playbook (Sarah Crichton Books / Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and three young adult novels, Sorta Like A Rock Star, Boy21, and Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock (Little, Brown & Co). His work has received many honors—including a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention—been translated into several languages, and called “beautiful . . . first-rate” by The New York Times Book Review. The Weinstein Company and David O. Russell have adapted The Silver Linings Playbook into film, starring Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Lawrence. Matthew lives in Massachusetts with his wife, novelist Alicia Bessette. For additional information visit:

  www.matthewquickwriter.com

  Sample Manuscript Pages Lunch with Buddha

  (progressively edited/revised manuscript pages)