Let joy be your offering

Mouse-size musings from the Dalai Lama's Cat

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What gives you joy, dear reader? I am not asking about some lofty state of meditative accomplishment, only an everyday delight. One of the kinds I see relished daily at The Himalaya Book Café. The expression on the face of a diner as she bites into a croissant fresh from the oven, the flaky, buttery exterior giving way to soft, warm deliciousness. My own thrill of anticipation lowering my face to a saucer of diced chicken liver. Is anything more truly bliss-inducing than this?

I don’t mean to make you salivate, only to find your own answer to an important question asked by Franc. That particular afternoon, the owner of The Himalaya Book Cafe was sitting in a rear banquette opposite his bookstore manager and long-standing friend Sam. Lured by the prospect of appetising shreds of left-over cheese, when I’d hopped onto the banquette to my chagrin I had discovered the shreds left over on his plate were contaminated with Dijon mustard – a flavour I cannot abide! I had to content myself with licking at just a few scrapes of butter before settling on the seat between the two men.

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“I just find the whole subject such a slippery fish,” Sam was complaining as he adjusted his spectacles. They were talking about shunyata and geeky, super-intelligent Sam had beside him a well-thumbed copy of Jampa Tegchok’s book, Insight into Emptiness.

Franc shrugged. “If it was easy to understand we’d all be well on our way to enlightenment.”

The two men often sparred. Franc the more seasoned practitioner and meditator. Sam the newer kid on the block who, nevertheless, possessed a prodigious intelligence and extraordinary capacity to retain information. Like a pair of debating monks up at Namgyal Monastery, each of them kept the other on his toes.

“Whenever I ask Lama Wangpo,” continued Sam. “He just tells me to keep practising the three wisdoms of listening, thinking and meditating.”

“Well,” Franc pulled a droll expression. “That’s been standard advice for the past two thousand years.”

“But, I mean,” Sam shook his head in exasperation. “Surely there has to be …”

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After a pause, Franc goaded him. “A short cut?”

Meeting his eyes Sam refused to take the bait. “A different modality. Something,” he searched for the right words. “Anything that gives a sense of what shunyata is really about.”

Franc, I noticed, was leaning forward ever-so-slightly in his seat.

“Some kind of experiential thing, maybe,” continued Sam.

“Experiential?”

“You know. A feel for it ...”

There was a glint in Franc’s eye that I knew of old: the excitement of being on the brink of being able to confer some special revelation. Regarding Sam closely he said, “You do know about the offering of joy?”

Sam looked puzzled.

“Yogi Tarchin’s practice?”

The other was shaking his head.

A triumphant expression appeared on Franc’s face. “One of my favourites! The most powerful and happiness-inducing way to encounter shunyata that I know.”  It wasn’t often that he stumbled on a Dharma teaching that Sam hadn’t already come across, and he was making the most of the moment.

“I guess you could say it’s a kind of reverse-engineering. You see, usually, when meditating on shunyata, we try to reach a state of mental peace, then insight, and stay with it until it develops into the experience of bliss.”

Sam was nodding.

“With this practice, we start with the bliss and work our way back to shunyata.”

“While meditating?”

Franc shook his head. “You begin,” he rested his arms on the table, leaning forward. “By asking yourself: what gives you joy?”

“Joy?” Cerebral Sam was quite taken aback by the question. Furrows appeared on his forehead.

“Ordinary pleasure,” said Franc. “Doesn’t have to be anything fancy.”

“You mean,” Sam was being cautious. “Sensory type stuff?”

As Franc nodded Sam continued, “Food? Music?”

“Music is a good one,” agreed Franc. ‘Because our happiness can be sustained for longer than, say, just eating a piece of chocolate.”

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In the afternoons Franc would sometimes make his way to a room above the café that was part office, part storage space, part relaxation zone. There he’d sprawl on the carpet, head on an old, red, Persian-design cushion, listening to one of his favourite classical music pieces full bore. I only rarely followed him upstairs, loud music being vexatious to a feline as sensitive as me. But on the few occasions I did, I never doubted he was completely absorbed – revelling in the experience.

“I just rediscovered Belinda Carlisle,” Sam agreed enthusiastically.

“I’m more a Hélène Grimaud person myself,” Franc named his favourite classical pianist. “But whatever. It doesn’t matter. So long as you really relish the experience.”

“Oh, I do!” Sam enthused.

“Good,” nodded Franc. “Having chosen the object, when we engage with it, we recollect where the wonderfulness is coming from.”

“Not from the object itself,” Sam responded in an instant, having a firm grip of this aspect of shunyata. “Because if that was the case, we’d both enjoy Belinda Carlisle and Hélène Grimaud as much as each other.”

“Exactly.”

“The wonderfulness is coming from our mind. We are projecting it onto the object.”

“On the basis of?”

“Karma.”

“Yes,” confirmed Franc. “Whatever the object of our attention, the reason we get pleasure from it is because we have created the cause for it. The true cause of any happiness is a virtue we created in the past. In this lifetime or a previous one.”

Sam’s expression turned thoughtful. “Not something I tend to think about,” he said.

“Most of us don’t,” Franc held his gaze. “The superstition of subject and object makes us believe that pleasure is coming from ‘out there’.”

“So that’s the practice, is it?” confirmed Sam. “Reminding ourselves of the real cause of happiness?”

“That’s how we start,” said Franc. “Funny thing is, in the moments that we are experiencing happiness, the simple act of recollecting that, much as it may seem, my happiness isn’t actually coming from the music, the food, the aromas, which have no inherent qualities, but is coming from me, arising from my own virtue – that act of recollection has the effect of magnifying our happiness.”

“A happiness accelerant?” joked Sam.

“Yes.”

“Applying an understanding of shunyata to a real-life event?”

Franc nodded.

“Genius!”

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“That, Grasshopper, is just the beginning,” Franc drew back in his seat and fixed him with a significant expression. “Getting back to your original question about understanding shunyata. According to the law of karma, we give what we most want to receive. If we wish for material wealth, we give it. If we wish for long life, we protect the lives of others. Karma 101, yes?”

“Of course.”

“So, if we wish to understand shunyata, then we give our own understanding of it - to the extent that we’re able.”

“Who to?” Sam looked aghast. “I’d hate to try teaching someone and send them in the wrong direction-”

“We give it to the most powerful object we can give anything to,” Franc ignored his qualms. As Sam stared at him, he continued, “The Buddhas themselves. Whether it’s Shakyamuni Buddha or an entire field of merit and whoever may be in it. Next time you are listening to music and feeling really happy, euphoric, you start by recollecting shunyata-”

“The happiness accelerant.”

“Where the happiness is coming from – not from the music itself, but from your own mind arising because of past virtue. Then you offer whatever joy you are feeling, arising from virtue, along with your recollection of shunyata to all gurus, Buddhas and bodhisattvas with the motivation: may this be a direct cause for all living beings to experience shunyata and to attain enlightenment. That’s the way to advance our understanding of shunyata.”

Sam was looking at him dumbfounded. “This is … extraordinary!”

“It is!”

“Revelatory!” He seemed dazed by the simplicity of the idea. “Offering the Buddhas what we most want to receive. Creating the cause to enjoy more of it. So effortless!”

“And at the same time, so blissful.”

“Something we can practice every day!”

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Sam seemed more energised than he had in a long while. And his immense intelligence was evidently at work. “Given that Buddhas’ wisdom is ever-present, and that their enjoyment of anything is based on their own flawless understanding, what we’re actually doing is offering them their own understanding of shunyata associated with whatever joy we are feeling.”

“Bliss emptiness,” agreed Franc. “Yes.”

Sam’s face was alight. “Why hasn’t anyone ever explained this before?”

“They kind of have,” shrugged Franc. “Only not in so many words. You see, this is the real purpose of the offerings we make to Buddhas. You know, the watering bowls set out in front of a Buddha statue, representing water for drinking, washing, flowers, perfume and so on.”

“I thought that was just a traditional ritual.”

“Like everything, what it is depends on your mind. This way,” he beamed, “offerings become a source of limitless merit.”

Franc was shaking his head.

“Yogi Tarchin sometimes says that the offerings we make in our daily sessions are kind of like training. Like practising scales and studies is to a musician. Like gym sessions and trial runs to an athlete. We drill. We rehearse. We get good at what we do so that when we’re off our meditation cushion and out in the world and we meet an opportunity like,” he shrugged, “a favourite piece of music, scrumptuous food, a favourite drink, then we can improvise. Turn our joy into an offering.”

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Sam was still shaking his head when Head Waiter Kusali swooped onto the table swiftly removing the used lunch plates before placing mugs of coffee before Franc and Sam. And a ramekin of clotted cream for me.

In an instant I had hopped onto the table, bushy grey tail held high, focusing on the object of my desire with keen attention. As I did, I recalled what Franc had said about offering joy in the moments that you experience it. Opening my pink mouth and taking a first lick of whisked cream, I recalled that the exquisite delectation I tasted wasn’t coming from the cream, but from a virtuous act of mine in the past. There were plenty of other beings who wouldn't thank you for ramekin of cream – I had seen enough screwed-up faces and curled lips to know this. But I wasn’t one of them. My own karma meant that, for me, this was a source of unalloyed joy! 

And just like Franc had said, the simple recollection that the joy wasn’t in the cream so much as my own virtue, had the effect of intensifying the wonder of the experience. I wasn’t simply tantalising my taste buds. I was celebrating virtue. Recollecting shunyata: the happiness accelerant.

This, Grasshopper, is only the beginning, Franc had said. In my state of elevated relish, I recalled his next instruction and offered the joy I was feeling to all gurus, Buddhas and bodhisattvas: may this be a direct cause for all sentient beings to experience this same bliss! 

Improvise, Franc had said. So I did, visualising His Holiness in a state of radiance as he accepted my offering. Imagining the rapture of all Buddhas - beings who were perceiving my mind right now – as they exalted in my wish for all sentient beings to become enlightened also.

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On either side of the table, Franc and Sam had tuned into my own enthusiastic indulgence and were extemporising in their own way.

“May this intense pleasure, the result of HHC’s previous virtue, be a direct cause for all beings to realize shunyata!” proposed Sam with a broad smile on his face.

“For all sem chens, throughout universal space, equally and without exception, to attain complete and perfect enlightenment!” chimed Franc, his eyes gleaming brightly.

And for you, dear reader, to recall the true cause of your every joy, to transform it into an offering, and in so doing to realize shunyata, that gateway to transcendent freedom and ever-increasing bliss!

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