What is the true source of beastliness - and delight? A Buddhist perspective.
Excerpt from "The Dalai Lama's Cat - Awaken the Kitten Within"
I am very happy to be sharing this chapter from the most recent book in The Dalai Lama’s Cat series - Awaken the Kitten Within.
It doesn’t matter if you are unfamiliar with the main characters, although I hope you may think of them affectionately, the way I do, as dear friends. The two things you need to know before starting are that:
Rishi, the two-year-old son of Serena and Sid is scared of the Dalai Lama’s Cat and screams whenever he sees her; and
Ricado and Natalia from Columbia, have recently become barristas at The Himalaya Book Cafe where Ricardo has struck up a playful friendship with gorgeous yoga instructor, Heidi.
To get the most out of the following story, I suggest that for one or two minutes you close your eyes, inhale deep breaths and exhale them slowly. Let go of whatever may have been occupying your mind. Give yourself permission to relax, to enjoy, and to be transported to a different world …
Chapter Seven
Where does wonderfulness come from, dear reader? And how about its opposite – awfulness? What is it that makes some things – or people – a source of untrammeled delight, but others truly beastly? And how is it that one can turn into the other, so very quickly and unexpectedly?
These are questions worth pondering, are they not? Especially when the level of beastliness you have to live with becomes insufferable. For a wise and mature-aged feline, seeking to live with greater zest, wouldn’t it be good to have a reliable way of infusing one’s life with a constant flow of one, while ensuring as little as possible of the other?
As I ventured out on a particular morning, little did I know that the answers to these very questions were about to be revealed – and in a way that was further from anything I could have imagined.
Bougainvillea Street was one of those typically winding McLeod Ganj roads which pass through stretches of ramshackle shops, cramped houses and barren patches of nothing in particular, before turning to reveal the bountiful flower boxes of an apartment block or the highly waxed wooden doors of some official building. It was up this street that The Downward Dog School of Yoga was to be found. And somewhat closer to home, on the opposite side from the yoga studio, my ultimate destination for the day: the high, whitewashed walls and ornate gates of what had once been the home of the Maharajah of Himachal Pradesh.
Things had been happening at 108 Bougainvillea Street. In recent days I’d overheard snippets between Mrs. Trinci and Tenzin in the VIP kitchen, about major renovations to the bedrooms and plumbing. Serena had spent most of one morning on the phone to landscape gardeners. Sweeping changes were afoot.
Even Franc and Sam were somehow involved. There had been impromptu meetings at the bookstore checkout with Serena, to discuss joint marketing. Quite what it all meant, I had no idea. But I intended to find out. And today was an important milestone, it seemed, because Sid and Serena were visiting to inspect building renovations that were well underway. Accompanying them as their guest of honour would be Yogi Tarchin.
Sid’s former home had always had a somewhat stately appearance. Set amid rolling lawns, with a perimeter of soaring cedars for privacy, I recalled the building as a substantial double-story, with marble steps, a formal entrance hall and a curiously institutional feel – a place with neither the gleaming impersonality of an office foyer, nor the welcoming warmth of a private home.
It was here that Sid had lived with his daughter Zahra, before he’d met Serena. Then a widower, coming to terms with the loss of his late wife, Shanti, in a car accident, this had also been Sid’s business headquarters.
In recent years, since Sid and Serena had moved into their own home with the tower, Sid had rented out Bougainvillea Street, and I had paid it little attention when passing by. However, if I sometimes paused to sniff at the elaborate wrought-iron gates and caught the distinctive whiff of a particular pair of canines, an involuntary shudder would pass through me. This place and I had history.
One of the greatest traumas of my life – or so I had believed for a time – was when I was spotted by these two rampaging beasts further down the street. Off their leashes, they had immediately given chase. I had darted into a spice shop for refuge. They had followed. Mayhem, a shrieking storekeeper and clouds of turmeric ensued, followed by a frantic pursuit. I had only just escaped those baying hell-beings and their slavering chops by scaling the gates of Sid’s house – a feat made possible by the adrenaline pounding through my system. For hours I had sat, spice-smeared and miserable on the wall of Sid’s former residence, until I was rescued by Serena on her way home from yoga.
I had come to think differently about what had happened – and my pursuers – when a similar pursuit, only weeks later, had ended with my back to Sid’s wall and nowhere to climb. I’d had no choice but to puff up with the fury of a wrathful deity and bare my fangs at the two beasts, who came to a startled halt, unsure what to do next. Stinging one on the nose with a swift claw strike, when he had the temerity to shove his snout in my direction, the two had quickly backed off. From that moment on, I was no longer a terrified victim but instead Snow Lion the Subduer – the Vanquisher of Golden Retrievers!
Pausing at the gates of 108 Bougainvillea Street today, I found the place a hive of activity. Gates open, a huge truck was backed up, with deliverymen ferrying a succession of bathroom items into the building. The outside walls had been repainted and adorned with gleaming tiled frames, giving the place an unexpectedly opulent flavor. A van of signwriters pulled up and men began to take measurements for whatever sign was to be mounted near the entrance.
Meantime I stepped inside, to see the gardens had been transformed into a place ripe for exploration by an inquisitive puss. Gone were the staid rows of flowerbeds, and instead there was a luxuriance of foliage everywhere. Hibiscus hedges created new enclaves around leafy seating areas which hadn’t existed before. Palm trees rose above cascading waterfalls, lush with tropical flowers. The perimeter of cedar trees still provided reassuring privacy – the only thing familiar about this new and lavish arcadia.
After a while, the truck was finally emptied of bathroom fittings, the deliverymen piled in, and the vehicle lurched away amid a belch of dark smoke. With the short driveway empty, I crossed glistening stone pavers to the front verandah. The front doors were open and from inside came the sound of distant voices. Were Sid and Serena already here inspecting the premises? If so, had they brought Rishi with them? And what exactly was this place to become? It had the atmosphere of a boutique hotel, the kind that featured on glossy magazine covers. But neither Sid nor Serena had ever spoken a word about wanting to become hoteliers.
The front doors were flanked by large brass tubs of camellias in lavish pink flower. Each tub was set on a wheeled base, and had evidently been watered recently. The puddle which had formed beneath the drainage holes was exactly the kind that required further investigation.
I padded over to one tub and sniffed the water curiously. I took my time as I inhaled, detecting hints of loamy nutrients. There are few kinds of water more delightful to a cat than one replete with earthy elements. It was while I was taking a few tentative laps that I became aware of a noise nearby. One which was disconcerting: a repetitive babble, growing louder. Shielded out of sight by the tub, I peered round the space behind. Sure enough, Rishi was emerging from the front door, crawling along the ground.
Fortunately, he hadn’t seen me. He continued happily with his rhythmic chant. Wherever he was, Serena couldn’t be far away. I’d wait till she was on the scene and had him in her arms before I revealed my presence.
At least, that was the plan.
Things suddenly changed with the arrival of a sinister presence. In the middle of the open gate, just a short distance away. It was a dog from one of the ramshackle houses down the street. A mean-spirited, wiry-haired creature I always avoided, having watched him snap aggressively at passers-by. Always on the scrounge for food. I had no idea why he was so transfixed by Rishi, until I saw what Rishi was holding in his hand. A piece of sandwich.
Rishi had seen the dog and wasn’t in the least concerned. Continuing his tuneless singsong, he bounced along the verandah, waving the food up and down. The dog moved closer, zeroing in on the prize, calculating his chances of snatching the morsel and making off with it.
Rishi would be shocked by the unexpected raid. Aggrieved to lose his snack. But it might be much worse. As the dog continued his stealthy approach, dropping his shoulders to the ground, I realized that this could become very nasty. The dog could inflict serious injury on a being as small and soft as Rishi. And if Rishi were to show the least sign of resistance, it could turn into a violent attack.
What was it about 108 Bougainvillea Street and dogs? How come both my previous threatening encounters with canines had occurred at this address? Even though I wasn’t the one being threatened this time, I felt impelled by an unexpected instinct. Rishi might be frightened of me for no good reason. But he was Serena’s baby. He had no chance at all against a vicious street dog. Having slipped from the protection of his devoted parents for mere moments, Rishi was about to have the shock of his life.
I drew back on my haunches in preparation.
The dog was edging inexorably closer, belly on the ground, body curving left and right.
Rishi was still chanting, but his mood shifted. Staring at the approaching dog, the tone of his infant voice was changing. He was waving his arms less, finding it hard to make sense of why the dog’s posture was so submissive – but its lips were starting to curl back in aggression.
Groveling before him, making clear its demand for food, it came within just a few feet of Rishi. At this point it revealed its true colors and snarled savagely. Rishi let out a shaken gurgle.
I leapt from my hiding place, taking both dog and Rishi unawares. Obsessed by Rishi’s sandwich, the dog hadn’t observed me in the shadows. Now I was flying towards it, reprising my role as vanquisher of canines. Front claws out, I was whipping through the air.
In that double time, every moment stretching as though elastic, to last very much longer than is usually the case. I saw Rishi’s expression change from shock, as he finally recognized what the dog was after, to an instinctive drawing back of his arm to protect his food. His face filled with rapidly changing emotions of fear and horror. At which point I appeared right before his eyes, connecting a ninja-like strike directly to the dog’s snout. It let out a startled whimper and sprang back. Just as a white van pulled into the gates, forcing it from the driveway.
After my balletic and entirely atypical kung fu, I landed a short distance away from Rishi, meeting his eyes directly. He stared at me, processing what had just happened. Would there be an operatic outpouring of delayed shock? An end-of-the-world meltdown, as he realized what had just happened?
To my surprise, after glancing to where the dog had disappeared behind the van and shoving the corner of his sandwich against his cheek, Rishi regarded me contemplatively. How much of what had just happened had he consciously taken in? Was he registering, on some level, that I had just saved him and his snack?
“La-la-laaa!” he proclaimed finally, hopping up and down on his bottom before turning towards the front door.
Rishi was proceeding inside at the same time as the voices became clearer. Sid was explaining something to Yogi Tarchin as the two came down the stairs. Serena was already standing in the middle of what had been remodeled as an upscale reception area, all gold and cream with red trims.
She interrupted whatever they were saying with a soft but urgent, “Look!” She was pointing towards where Rishi was bumping cheerfully along the floor – accompanied by me.
“Amazing!” Sid was delighted.
Yogi Tarchin nodded with a composed smile.
“How did that happen?” Serena’s expression was ecstatic.
A uniformed woman arrived with a tray of drinks.
“Lemonade, Yogi Tarchin?” gestured Serena.
“Thank you,” he smiled, picking up a glass.
Serena came to collect Rishi before the three adults crossed the room to the verandah, which was replete with plush new furniture. Overlooking the blooming gardens, it felt like we were in a rarefied sanctuary, cocooned and tranquil. Not that either the gardens or the house were on Serena’s mind right now.
As I sat on a seagrass mat, a short distance from where Rishi was still toying with his food, she was staring at us, shaking her head. “This is so amazing!” she murmured. “Rishi has been terrified of HHC since the first time he saw her. Now today,” she snapped her fingers, “he’s totally fine with her. What’s that all about?”
“Who knows?” Sid was following her gaze. “I’m just relieved.”
Yogi Tarchin was watching the two of us. “All is mind,” he said, after a pause. “Rishi’s fear of HHC never came from HHC. She has no inherent qualities to be afraid of.”
Oh, no? I delivered a sapphire-blue stare. Ask the savage street dog. Or the Golden Retrievers. They might tell you differently.
But as soon as their images passed through my mind, so did that of the President of the Swansea and Aberystwyth Cat Fanciers’ Association, poking me away with his shoe like some unsavory detritus. Moments before Natalia carried me away, declaring me to be a cat of great highness.
Whatever qualities I possessed, it seemed, existed only in the minds of those who perceived me.
“It’s the same with everything,” said Yogi Tarchin, lifting his glass of lemonade. “Where does the deliciousness of lemonade come from?”
“Not from the lemonade,” chuckled Sid. “However it may seem.”
“Exactly! If that was so, everyone would love lemonade. But there are plenty of people who don’t. Plenty who would find it too sweet, too tart, too concentrated or too watery. Which means the delightfulness of lemonade comes from the mind of the person perceiving it as delightful. And whatever happiness is produced by the mind only arises because of a previously created cause.”
“Such as giving someone else a tasty drink?” asked Serena.
“Could be,” agreed Yogi Tarchin. “There are so many possible causes shaping our experience of reality, moment by moment. What’s important is to recognize the true cause of whatever pleasantness we experience, rather than the apparent causes – like lemonade – which are merely the conditions. What’s actually happening is that we are enjoying the results of previously created karma.”
The pause that followed was filled with the chatter of bulbuls in nearby bushes, and the distant drone of a lawnmower around the other side of the house.
“When we really understand that …” said Serena after a while. “When we want to integrate it into our lives, it’s really motivating to get out there and do positive things.”
Yogi Tarchin regarded her earnest look with a playful expression.
She tilted her head to one side, inquiringly.
He chuckled with mischief.
“What?” she asked.
“You are right of course,” he told her with a twinkle. “Doing positive things. Like what Sid and you are doing here. It is going to be wonderful – of benefit to your friends and to so many other beings!” He took in the gorgeous vista of gardens and house, before looking from one of them to the other. “But you can create powerful causes for positive experiences just by sitting here. I think of it as being intelligently lazy.”
“You mean by meditating?” queried Serena.
“Invoking the Buddhas’ blessings?” proposed Sid.
Yogi Tarchin leaned forward in his chair, raising his glass. “Celebrating!” he told them, with a smile. “Celebrating your own happiness, as well as that of others.”
When we celebrate something, explained Yogi Tarchin, we create a surprisingly powerful cause to enjoy whatever is the object of celebration. If we celebrate a person being promoted to senior executive level, we create the cause to be elevated ourselves. In celebrating the success and happiness of others, we generate the karmic causes of our own future success and happiness.
As with so much Buddhist psychology, there is pragmatism in this approach. Rejoicing in the successes of others helps us overcome jealousy. We are less likely to be resentful, when we understand how the triumphs of others offer a pathway to our own fulfilment. We may more wholeheartedly celebrate their successes, when we know the effects that we’re creating for our own future. And if we can bring ourselves to celebrate the happiness of people we dislike, we not only overcome jealousy, but hatred too.
How powerful is the karma created by celebrating? According to Yogi Tarchin, very powerful. “As Buddhists, we aspire to attain enlightenment, Buddhahood itself, which can appear very distant and unattainable. But just by celebrating the actions of someone of a higher level than ourselves, we create half the amount of virtue that they have. And by rejoicing in the virtues of Buddhas or bodhisattvas, we can attain a tenth of the benefits they have gained, because their level of development is so much greater than ours.
“So you see, rejoicing is a very profitable business. It takes no physical or mental effort, but it’s easy and brings wonderful results.”
Listening intently, Sid and Serena looked delighted. “I’d like to celebrate your powers of concentration as a yogi!” Sid raised his glass of lemonade, toasting Yogi Tarchin.
“And I’d like to rejoice in your compassion and wisdom!” Serena chimed in.
“I am just a humble meditator,” he protested. “Better that you rejoice in the virtues of all Buddhas and bodhisattvas of the three times and ten directions.”
“As in our chant every morning,” confirmed Sid.
“Which is why we do it,” nodded Yogi Tarchin. “It’s not just a ritual. Not only out of reverence. We are creating the causes to become Buddhas ourselves. In the meantime,” he nodded towards them both, “I celebrate your success in creating this beautiful place.”
“Well, Rinpoche, I don’t think I can claim the credit for the idea,” Sid met his gaze. “That was yours, when you visited on the day of our board meeting.”
“Not that you picked up on it immediately,” smiled Serena.
“True,” he nodded. “Back then, I didn’t even know that Binita was in trouble.”
It was Serena whose gaze settled on me first. Then Sid’s, followed by Yogi Tarchin’s. And even Rishi’s. One by one, all four humans were turning to look at me.
“Perhaps we should celebrate having HHC in our lives?” suggested Serena.
“Whenever she is around, unexpected things happen,” observed Sid.
Rishi, sitting on the mat nearby, had been scrutinizing me closely. At that moment, he raised his arm and reached out to touch me.
My journey home took me past The Himalaya Book Café, the side with the new hutch serving coffee. Being mid-afternoon, there was no line at the window.
I paused, looking up. In my younger and more athletic days, I would have attempted a leap to the counter as a way inside. Alas, that would be a vault too far, given my senior-status inflexibility. And from ground level, I was unable to see who might be inside. So it was serendipitous that at the very moment I paused beneath the window, who should appear but Heidi.
“Guten Tag, HHC!” she bent to stroke me.
Then came Natalia’s voice from inside the café. Heidi responded, requesting a chai latte. And was my feline intuition serving me correctly, or was there a certain awkwardness in the way she stepped back from the window and was on her haunches again, lavishing unusual attention on me.
In recent weeks, during afternoons when I was dozing on the top shelf of the magazine rack, I had observed how Heidi had become a regular at the serving window. Usually in the mid-afternoon, when the café went through a lull. And when Ricardo was on duty.
They would have long conversations, with much laughter and teasing. She’d often stay at the window, waiting for other customers to come and go, lingering as long as it took to finish her chai.
There was no such chatter today. But after a while she was answering a question of Natalia’s, which seemed to concern me. Soon she was lifting me up and placing me on the counter, where Natalia served up a saucer of warm milk, her dark eyes sparkling as she watched me lapping it up.
There was a pause while Natalia poured hot water containing an exotic combination of spices and ginger from a small metal jug. A look of earnest concentration on her face, before she replaced the metal jug on the counter with a decisive clunk.
Beginning to froth milk, she flashed a glance at Heidi. “Ricardo likes you very much,” she said with laser-like directness.
Color instantly rose to Heidi’s cheeks. “I don’t think so.”
“Definitely,” she held Heidi’s gaze. “I know what he is like. Talk, talk, talk. Whenever he likes a girl, it is the same with him. Talk, talk.”
Heidi was shaking her head.
“Even that first time he saw you, for the coffee testing,” Natalia’s eyes were resolute. “He keeps talking about chai. In front of everyone, he still talks. That’s his way when he likes a woman.”
“Maybe he was just nervous,” said Heidi, raising a hand to brush back a lock which hadn’t fallen to her cheek.
“And you have these long conversations …”
“Yes, but …”
“I have seen with my own eyes.”
“In the afternoons …”
“He only wanted to go to yoga because of you. Never had interest before. In Barcelona I said to him once, ‘Let’s try this yoga’ and he’s like …” she hunched her shoulders, contorting her features in an expression of apathy.
“That doesn’t mean he’s into me. I’ve never encouraged …”
“If you play it cool,” Natalia’s expression was blazing. “He is only more keen. It drives him crazy.”
“I would never do anything!” Heidi’s voice rose in protest.
“There’s something wrong with Colombians?” demanded Natalia, her accent deepening with emotion.
“What?” Heidi was startled by the sharp turn in conversation.
“The skin?” She was pointing at her own. “Too dark for a German girl?”
“I never said …”
“He’s a good man! Intelligent. Hard worker,” she frothed the milk furiously.
“Sure, he’s all those things,” Heidi was ambivalent.
Pouring milk into the cup, Natalia pushed it forcefully across the counter. “Then, what’s wrong with him?”
Heidi’s mouth moved soundlessly, as she struggled to get the words out. Before she blurted, “He’s your boyfriend.”
“Ricardo?!” It was Natalia’s turn to be astounded. But her shock swiftly changed to hilarity. “He is my brother!” she snorted. “The little one.”
“What?”
“My boyfriend, Federico, he is finishing exams in Barcelona. He comes here in six weeks.”
“So Ricardo …” Heidi was struggling to take this in.
Putting her elbows on the counter, Natalia leaned forward, fixing Heidi with a droll expression. “He likes you. If you like him,” she shrugged, “and I think yes, then you can make each other happy. Like Federico and me.”
Coming to the end of the milk, I lifted my head from the saucer and fixed Heidi with a blue stare. She was astonished. Bemused. Struggling to take it all in. But along with the shock, there was also a new sparkle in her eyes. She began to smile.
It was a short walk home to Namgyal. After an eventful day, I took my time on the journey back. I slipped behind the row of stalls outside the monastery gates, pausing to take in a new and pungent aroma, where cast-off dill from a food outlet had been tossed onto the grass verge behind it. I stopped at the chin-height scratching post, formed by a gnarled tree trunk, to give myself a gentle jaw massage – both sides – and behind the ears.
It was late afternoon when I entered the gates to the paved courtyard. A few tourists were wandering in the distance, taking in the temple with its flight of red stairs leading up to elaborate Tibetan architecture, the tiers of roofs studded with gold ornaments stretching up towards the sky. Behind it all, the soaring, ice-capped Himalayas. In the slanting gold rays of the sun, the scene had a magic to it like a mirage that, rainbow-like, might dissolve away if you turned your gaze from it for just a moment.
Instead of crossing to the building which was my home, I stopped to sit some distance away, looking up towards the empty sill which was my usual vantage point.
Today, Rishi had discovered that the assumptions he had made about me being a threatening beast were quite wrong. In fact, I had turned out to be among his most vigorous defenders.
Heidi had also had her assumptions about Ricardo and Natalia revealed to be mistaken, their intimacy arising from the fact that they were siblings, not lovers.
In both cases, Rishi and Heidi had been held back from life and love by nothing more tangible than ideas. Thoughts which had grown over time to become as certain to them as facts.
“We paint the world with our thoughts,” Christopher had said. “We apply broad swathes of color to this person and that object, without even realizing what we’re doing. We do it unknowingly and all the time to everything and everybody, so that our entire experience of reality is like a painting, a creation of our own mind. We are all painters.”
Today I had experienced the truth of that, only a whisker away. It was always easier to see in others, of course. To witness the dramatic change that had come over Rishi, when he began to perceive me in a different way. How Heidi’s extreme awkwardness had visibly given way to emotions of an entirely different kind.
As I sat in the autumn sun, I was reminded of what Yogi Tarchin had said about the source of wonderment or awfulness, of beastliness or delight: The delightfulness of lemonade comes from the mind of the being perceiving it as delightful. And whatever happiness is produced by mind … is only arising because of a previously created cause. The apparent causes of our happiness – like lemonade – are merely the conditions. What’s actually happening is that we are enjoying the fruits of previously created karma.
There was something deeply reassuring about the wisdom that the real source of wellbeing was not to be found in the outside world, but in one’s own mind. There need be no dramatic change in circumstances to experience the greatest happiness. The only shift required was of one’s own consciousness.
You can create powerful causes for positive experiences even just sitting here, Yogi Tarchin had said. Celebrating your own happiness and the happiness and success of others.
With the glow of the sun on my fur and face, I sensed contentment in this moment. Even more so, as I reminded myself that the contentment I was feeling didn’t come from the sun itself, but from my mind as a result of previous kindness.
That contentment welled up all the more as I celebrated whatever good deed I had done, to be experiencing such happiness here and now. And knowing that, by celebrating it, I was creating the cause for future moments of happiness, my wellbeing increased only the more. What had started out as a passing mundane sensation was becoming magnified to one that was profound and dynamic, enveloping every part of my being to the very tips of my whiskers.
Celebrating is the great multiplier. And celebrating the wisdom that mind itself is the true cause of happiness – this is a multiplier beyond anything that might be conceived. I felt the truth of it deep down in my bones. The embodiment of wisdom so that even if, to the world, I may have simply appeared to be a cat sitting in the sunlight on an ordinary afternoon, my own experience of reality was quite extraordinary – that of vibrant and increasing bliss.
At which moment something apparently mundane, yet strangely magical, occurred. Up above at the window, the Dalai Lama appeared. A small silhouette to begin with, but growing in size as he approached. He paused, looking across the courtyard.
Many had been the time when, from where he stood now, I had watched the Dalai Lama crossing from the monastery, the temple or the gates. On some occasions, he had glanced up to see me at the window. This was the first time our positions were reversed.
Just by celebrating the actions of someone of a higher level than ourselves, we create half the amount of virtue that they have, Yogi Tarchin had said. And by rejoicing in the virtues of Buddhas or bodhisattvas, we can attain a tenth of the benefits they gained, because their level of development is so much greater than ours.
It would be easy for any being to rejoice in the kindness of His Holiness. And as His Holiness’s Cat, where to begin? Perhaps how he had rescued me from certain death on the streets of New Delhi. Brought me back to Namgyal to share his home. For the countless hours we have spent meditating together. For the wisdom and humor and compassion he has constantly shared – that intangible but powerful prana I know so well, and that is felt by so many who come in contact with him.
Now, as I was suddenly struck by where that prana was coming from – and not as a mere idea – I felt caught by an upsurge of such powerful wellbeing that I was taken quite unawares. For there was only one place it possibly could come from!
Was it really true that, like any other external phenomena, the Dalai Lama was merely a contributing factor, a catalyst? Could it actually be that the extraordinary awe so many beings feel in his presence – and which is among my greatest joys – arises in our minds as a result of previously created causes? If so, what did that say about the virtue we have created in the past, to feel such a force? About the fact that His Holiness, like Yogi Tarchin, has devoted his life to revealing the truth of this to others?
Having made this recognition, it was easy to feel the miraculous. For waves of profound gratitude, spontaneous and heartfelt, to flow from where I was sitting upwards to where he stood at the window. For the joy that arose to be amplified exponentially by the knowledge of how His Holiness embodied the wisdom that all is mind. And that our minds are wellsprings of radiant, boundless transcendence.
Reality had never appeared more wondrous and I had never been happier than as I sat on the pavers that autumn afternoon. And perhaps something of my inner transformation was evident to the Dalai Lama, because as our eyes met across the courtyard, he brought his palms together to his lips and smiled.
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