The Dalai Lama's Cat (25 page)
There is a postscript to this story, dear reader. Of course there is—that’s the best bit, don’t you think? The unexpected bonbon. The balletic pirouette. When it comes to sudden shifts in gear, I am that kind of cat.
This is just such a book.
And, having come this far with me, like it or not, my friend, you are most certainly that type of reader!
First, a confession.
I had been unsettled the day I had listened to Sam’s spiraling self-doubt, as he explained his feelings of inadequacy to Franc. How being laid off from the bookstore had underlined the rejection he had felt at being the last boy standing at sports-team selections. How his failure to find love at college only reinforced the saga of a woeful misfit. The fact that many highly capable professionals had no sporting prowess, or that some of the most gorgeous women happily partnered with the geekiest of men, somehow didn’t deflect his self-destructive beliefs. Considering how intelligent he was, his explanation was bizarre and would even have been laughable were it not for the pain it so obviously caused him.
And yet when I had listened to how he combined an assortment of disconnected experiences to produce an elaborately depressing narrative about himself, I couldn’t avoid a painful recognition: I was just like that.
Didn’t I allow one negative thought to spark off a quite unrelated one? No sooner was I reflecting on my poor meditation skills than I would turn to my lack of discipline at the food bowl. Contemplating my physical form, I’d dwell on the absurd way I walked because of the injury to my legs. Which led, with depressing inevitability, to my earliest memories and the matter of my pedigree.
After the jolt delivered by Geshe Wangpo, I came to discover the opposite dynamic: that positive thoughts also multiply—and produce the most unexpectedly wonderful effects.
There is a quotation attributed to Goethe, much loved by the manufacturers of fridge magnets, greeting cards, and other inspirational trinkets. It runs: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” Although Tenzin told me that Goethe never wrote any such thing, the words have a compelling resonance to them.
Once I began to be more self-confident about my meditation practice, I found it affected a lot of other things. I wouldn’t eat every last scrap of Mrs. Trinci’s diced chicken liver just because it was there. I would walk, tail high, into meetings with the most distinguished of His Holiness’s visitors. Why shouldn’t I?
And the most curious of things: Tashi and Sashi, the street-urchins-turned-novices whom His Holiness had instructed to take particular care of me, continued to visit me in the Jokhang visitors’ room from time to time. Usually they’d sit on the floor for five minutes and scratch my neck. Sometimes they’d recite mantras.
One afternoon, a few days after my change in attitude, they happened to visit. Following the usual format, I rolled onto an elaborate rug, arms and legs splayed, to allow them to run their fingers up and down my tummy.
It was at this point that Chogyal came into the room.
“Very nice.” He nodded to the two boys with a smile.
“She has grown into a beautiful cat,” said Tashi.
“A Himalayan,” Chogyal told them, bending to massage the velvety tips of my ears. “Usually, only wealthy people can afford cats such as this one.”
Sashi had a faraway look in his eye for a while before he said, “This cat’s mother was owned by wealthy people.”
“She was?” Chogyal raised his eyebrows.
“Even though we were in a poor area, we used to watch the mother walk along the wall from the big house—”
“Very big house,” interjected Tashi. “With
its own swimming pool
!”
“She went there to eat,” Sashi said.
“One day we followed her to the kittens—” Tashi began.
“That’s how we found them,” finished Sashi.
“They had several very shiny Mercedes at that house,” Tashi recalled. “And a servant whose only job was to keep them polished!”
Chogyal straightened. “How interesting. It seems that HHC may be a purebreed after all. But you know, it is our vow, as Buddhists, not to take anything unless it is freely given. I wonder if it is possible to contact the family she originally came from, to offer them payment.”
Visits by heads of state almost always created a stir of activity at Jokhang. In the days running up to them, hatchet-faced intelligence officers would want to see the inside of every cupboard in the complex. Chiefs of protocol would meet to discuss the tiniest of details. Extraordinary lengths were taken to ensure that every contingency was accounted for, from the location of security detachments on nearby rooftops to the texture of toilet paper provided for the VIPs, should that particular need arise.
This was why I was caught completely unaware the day His Holiness received a visitor who was not just a national leader but a real-life queen.
There had been none of the usual elaborate preparation beforehand. Only a low-key security visit half an hour earlier, which was ironic, because I knew that this particular royal visitor was one whom His Holiness was especially eager to meet. I had overheard him speak of both the young queen and her husband very warmly in the past. Not only was she extraordinarily beautiful but she was married to the king of the only Himalayan Buddhist country in the world.
I am talking, of course, about the queen of Bhutan.
For those readers who didn’t spend their school days poring over atlases of the Himalaya region—do such people exist?—Bhutan is a small country east of Nepal, south of Tibet, and a bit north of Bangladesh. It’s the kind of place that might have escaped your attention had a flake of smoked salmon fallen from your bagel onto just the wrong spot on the map. The same point could be made about half the countries in Europe, but to have missed Bhutan would be a terrible oversight, because it is, quite simply, the closest place to Shangri-la on Earth.
A remote and secluded kingdom, impenetrable behind the Himalaya ranges, until the 1960s Bhutan had no national currency or telephones, and television only arrived in 1999. The focus of people’s lives has traditionally been on cultivating inner wealth rather than material well-being. It was the ruling King of Bhutan himself who, in the 1980s, set up a system that measured national advancement according to Gross National Happiness rather than Gross Domestic Product.
A land of gold-roofed temples perched on the unlikeliest cliff ledges, of prayer flags fluttering across deep, mountain chasms, and of monks chanting in incense-suffused seventh-century temples, Bhutan is pervaded by a magical quality. And there was an extraordinary presence to the young queen when she appeared in His Holiness’s suite.
I had been at my usual place on the windowsill, dozing in the morning sun, when I heard her announced by Lobsang. At the words “Her Royal Highness,” I rolled onto my back and let my head hang over the edge of the sill.
Even viewing her upside down, I could see she was the most exquisite of beings. Petite, golden-skinned, with long hair that was dark and lustrous, she had a captivating delicacy about her. In her traditional Bhutanese
kira
—an ornately embroidered ankle-length dress—she seemed almost doll-like. Yet the way she moved was natural and unaffected, suggesting great personal warmth.
I watched her present His Holiness with the traditional white scarf, her face bowed and hands folded together at her heart in a gesture of devotion. After the ceremonial exchange she glanced around the room before sitting down—and immediately caught sight of me.
Our eyes met and even though we held each other’s gaze for the briefest of moments, something important was communicated. I instantly knew that she was one of us.
A cat lover.
When she sat down, it seemed to me that she brushed her kira flat on her lap in anticipation of what would happen next. Rolling off the sill, I landed on the carpet and performed a sun salutation, luxuriantly stretching out my front paws, then a reverse sun salutation, tremulously shuddering my hind quarters with a shimmy of my tail, before making my way to where she sat. Hopping up onto her lap, I settled immediately, and she began stroking my neck, like the old friends we intuitively knew we were.
There is a rare minority of humans who possess an innate understanding of the changing moods of a cat: how what we might want at one moment may be quite different from what we wished for only moments before. Some people know that they should not keep stroking a cat until we are forced to turn around and deliver a sharp, incisive warning—usually focused on the index finger. A small proportion understand that just because we wolfed down a can of grilled turkey with lip-smacking relish one day it does not mean we have the slightest interest in even looking at the same food the next.
Was it not Winston Churchill who said that a cat is a riddle, inside an enigma, inside a delightful pelt of cuddliness? No? I could have sworn that just recently I read something to that effect in an article about him. And if he didn’t say it, he almost certainly thought it. Wikipedia should be told!
And then there’s Albert Einstein, who reportedly said that music and cats offer the only escape from the miseries of life. Note that on the subject of other species of domesticated animals, the greatest thinker of the 20th century remained curiously mute. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions.
We cats are not robotic beasts who can be conditioned to jump up or sit down or salivate at the utterance of a command or the press of a bell. Did you ever hear of Pavlov’s
cat?
My point exactly. The very thought is unimaginable!
No, cats are indeed a mystery, sometimes even to ourselves. Most people are willing to treat us with the respect accorded to those who add so much to the sum of human contentment while making so few demands. Only a rare few truly understand us. And the queen of Bhutan is among that elite minority.
After a few getting-to-know-you strokes, she drew her fingertips together and massaged my forehead with her nails, sending shivers of exquisite pleasure all the way down my spine to the tingling tip of my tail.
I rewarded her with a deep-throated purr.
His Holiness, who had been making polite inquiries about the health of the king and other Bhutanese royals, looked over at me. It was his habit to ask visitors if they minded having me in the room. Some humans, it seems, are afflicted with an allergy that must be as devastating as a violent reaction to, say, Belgian truffles, Italian coffee, or Mozart. The queen was being so attentive to me that the Dalai Lama had no need to ask, but nodding in my direction, he did say, “This is quite exceptional. I have never known her to take to someone so quickly! She must like you very much.”
“And I like her,” Her Royal Highness replied. “She is magnificent!”
“Our little Snow Lion.”
“I’m sure she brings you much enjoyment.” The queen moved her fingertips to massage my charcoal ears with just the right degree of firmness.
His Holiness chuckled. “She has a great personality!”
Conversation moved on; the queen discussing various Dharma practices. As they talked, she continued her delightful ministrations, and I was soon in a state of semiconscious bliss, with the conversation between the two of them passing above me.
In recent weeks I had been making a conscientious effort with my own daily meditations, after the stern wake-up call delivered by Geshe Wangpo. I had also taken myself off to the temple a number of times, attending the teachings of a variety of high-ranking lamas. Every time, a different aspect of Dharma practice was discussed. And on each occasion, the practice seemed very important.
Mind training is the foundation of all Buddhist activities, and we are encouraged to develop strong concentration not only when meditating but also by practicing mindfulness throughout each day. As one of the lamas explained, if we are not objectively aware of our thoughts moment by moment and instead engage with every one of them, how can we begin to change them? “You can’t manage what you don’t monitor,” he said. Mindfulness, it seems, is a foundation practice.
A different teacher explained how the six perfections are the very heart of our tradition. If we fail to practice generosity, ethics, and patience, to name just three, what is the point of learning texts or reciting mantras? Without virtue, the teacher said, none of our other Dharma activities would be very meaningful.
Yet another lama explained how wisdom about the nature of reality is what distinguishes Buddha’s teachings from all others. The way the world appears to us is illusory, he emphasized, and understanding this very subtle truth requires a great deal of listening, thinking, and meditation. Only those who understand the truth directly and nonconceptually can achieve nirvana.
As my thoughts continued to weave in and out of the conversation between the queen and the Dalai Lama, I remembered the teaching I had been to only the previous night. There in the soft-lit temple, with innumerable buddhas and bodhisattvas looking down on us in the form of statues and wall hangings, one of Namgyal Monastery’s most revered yogis had described the rich esoteric tradition of tantra practices, including those focused on White Tara and Medicine Buddha. Each of the practices came with its own text, or
sadhana
, to recite, along with visualizations and accompanying mantras. Certain tantras are of vital importance, the yogi explained, if we wish to attain enlightenment quickly.