by David Michie
Long, slanting rays of afternoon sun burnished the courtyard a deep gold. Sandaled monks made their way quietly from the temple back to their quarters in the monastery. At the gates, the last group of that day’s tourists took their final photographs of the monastery and, in the distance, the soaring Himalayas.
Then, from downtown Dharamsala, came the wail of an ambulance. It was faint at first, but it drew steadily closer and grew louder in volume as it made its way up the hill to McLeod Ganj. People began looking out of the monastery gates toward the source of the sound.
But before it reached the gates, the alarm ended as suddenly as it had begun.
The Dalai Lama hugged me to him. We were both thinking of the last time an ambulance had been so close.
“From suffering can come growth. Isn’t that so, my little one?” His Holiness seemed to be reminding me of the night we’d both looked out at the temple lights, and in particular, the meaning of the symbol of the lotus. “Sometimes it can take a shock, an outside event, to help us find our way to a more useful life.”
There was a pause while I considered this. Then the Dalai Lama observed, “I know you have already discovered this.”
The recognition that I had grown in some small but important way made me purr. And as I contemplated the months that had passed since Mrs. Trinci’s heart attack and then her first meditation lesson, I realized how much I had come to learn about the gentle and profoundly life-changing practice of simply being here, now.
I had discovered, to begin with, that I wasn’t all alone in suffering from fleas. I had learned that even humans experience great mental agitation when they begin trying to meditate. Poor Mrs. Trinci had even believed herself incapable of calming her mind until the Dalai Lama had convinced her otherwise.
Geshe-la’s teachings on self-compassion, so life-changing for Franc, had also had a special relevance for me and my own attempts to meditate. Being cruelly judgmental would achieve nothing, I had discovered. On the other hand, even a little progress could mark a major turning point. I remembered the morning I had faced seafood medley for the fifth breakfast in a row, the disappointing lapse at the Himalaya Book Café that had deprived me of my much-loved sole meunière at lunch, and how I had suddenly realized that my deep disgruntlement was less a result of what had happened to me than of my state of mind. I had come to see for myself that while I couldn’t change the world, I could change the way I experienced it. Even my modest, seemingly ineffectual attempts at mindfulness up till then had begun to protect me from life’s inevitable ups and downs. What a wonderful realization that had been. Almost—could I really be thinking this?—wonderful enough to justify the tedium of seafood medley for five breakfasts in a row!
Mindfulness made the world a more exquisite place. For Mrs. Trinci, it had made music lovelier and flowers more beautiful. For me, catnip became no doubt more intoxicatingly “catnippier” than it might have otherwise been. I had learned that when I really paid close attention, when my mind was open and my senses acute, I was able to find intense joy in the simplest of things.
I had also come to recognize that I didn’t have only five senses. During the famous online media queen’s visit, His Holiness had explained how, just as we pay attention to what we see, hear, and smell, we can also pay attention to our thoughts—not by engaging with them but by merely observing them. The radical idea that I could shift from getting involved with every thought I had to simply but objectively watching them was a revelation. As Ludo had said at the yoga studio, creating space, cultivating awareness, is vital if we are to let go of old habits. And as my newfound friend the driver had observed in the garden, it is only when we are aware of what is happening in our minds that we are able to plant flowers and root out the weeds.
It had been intriguing to hear from the visiting litter man how his company benefited from mindfulness with more innovation, productivity, job satisfaction, and team building, even if those things weren’t directly relevant to a cat on a sill.
Of much more personal interest to me was the truth pointed out by Yogi Tarchin that abiding in the here and now protects us from anxiety about the future as well as from the traumas of the past. The physical results of which, as Oliver and Tenzin’s recent census clearly showed, were better health and longer life.
But weaving through all my encounters of the past weeks was one theme that His Holiness returned to often. It paralleled what Ani Drolma had told Serena only recently: mindfulness is the key to discovering the primordial nature of mind itself. And what we find, at first only in glimpses, is that our minds are boundless and radiant, as much in the nature of feeling as in the ability to perceive. When we tap into this, we encounter feelings of expansive tranquility and abiding bliss.
“Yes, my little Snow Lion,” the Dalai Lama continued as if he was aware of exactly what I was thinking, “the greatest terma we can find is not in a cave in the mountains, it is within ourselves. We must each discover the treasure that we already possess, which is the nature of mind itself. Our only job is to remove the obscurations, to shake off the fleas. That way, we find that our own deepest nature is one of pure, great love and pure, great compassion.”
In His Holiness’s arms, I had never felt closer to that wonderful truth.
Along with cerebral pursuits, I was as curious as ever about more practical matters. In particular, progress at 21 Tara Crescent, which continued to be the subject of daily updates at the Himalaya Book Café.
Upon hearing that floors, carpets, and curtains had been installed in Sid and Serena’s new home, midway through an otherwise sleepy afternoon I decided that the time had come for me to make another site visit. After a nature stop in the garden, I continued up the road until reaching the Patel Construction sign that marked the entrance to the drive. I also discovered impressive gateposts had been built—brass numerals reading “21” were on the left-hand gate, and a letterbox was on the right. The gates, currently open, were large, made from wrought iron, and painted black. I was relieved to find that the gaps between the bars were just wide enough for the fluffy body of a long-haired feline.
Making my way along the side of the driveway, now covered with gravel, I noticed that the gardens had been tamed and weeds removed. The flower beds were rich with compost and now featured all kinds of flowering plants—it was a transformation.
As for the freshly painted and spotlessly clean house itself, it looked as otherworldly and inviting as ever, especially with that tower reaching high above it, a secluded, leaf-clad aerie silhouetted against the mountains.
Eager though I was to go farther, there was, dear reader, no way I could possibly do so. Six tradesmen’s vans were parked directly outside the front door. Men in a variety of uniforms bustled between the vans and the house, carrying all manner of tools and furnishings. From inside came a cacophony of electric drills, hammering, and shouted instructions. Mr. Patel emerged at one point, clasping a mobile phone to his ear with one hand while gesticulating to a group of men carefully guiding a chandelier through the front door with the other.
I sat, entranced by all the activity. I was all the more curious to see how much the house had changed inside. But it was no place for a cat today. I would have to bide my time. Pick my moment. But soon, I promised myself, very soon, I would return to the house when the coast was clear. In particular, I wanted to be up at the top of the tower, looking out through one of those large picture windows. What would the world look like from up there? I wondered.
Achieving this simple goal turned out to be a lot less easy to achieve than I thought, for one very simple reason: the activity didn’t stop. If anything, judging from Serena’s reports down at the café, as the night of the housewarming party drew closer, the tempo had only increased. The flurry of workmen with toolboxes and drop-sheets segued into a flurry of deliverymen bringing catering equipment, flowers, and rental furniture for the party. In the days immediately leading up to the big night, frequent visits were made by Kusali and his team to m
ake sure that everything was in order for Serena and Sid.
It was only on the day of the party itself that I judged it safe to explore 21 Tara Crescent again. It was late on one of those glorious Himalaya afternoons when the sky is perfectly clear, the air pristine, and, amid the buzz of insects and the trill of birds, the whole world seems to bask in the warmth of the late sun.
As I approached the driveway to the house, I noticed that the sign for Patel Construction was gone. The walls and gateposts looked reassuringly stately, and inside, the gardens looked manicured and established—as though they had always been this way.
I was relieved not to see a single van or car in the driveway. Free for the first time of dust or hubbub, the house stood, serene and inviting, in the glow of twilight. Lights had been turned on in different rooms, making the house emanate a warmth of its own. For the first time it looked lived in; it was no longer merely a house, but a home. And was it just me, or was there something utterly irresistible about that tower that drew your eye—and heart—to it?
I ventured forth and up onto the veranda, once covered in dust and grime, now immaculately polished and with gleaming windows. I walked through the open French doors into a large room exquisitely prepared for the party. It was a gorgeous salon with cream walls, gold curtains, and velvet sofas arranged around the fireplace—I could see myself on one of those on a cold, wintry night! Tea lights in small, colored glasses decorated with brass flickered everywhere I looked. Lush baroque chords filled the room from unseen speakers.
Ever curious, I wobbled across a richly embroidered rug and through a door into a corridor that I remembered from before. But instead of meeting the dull emptiness of my previous visit, this time I discovered an Aladdin’s cave of furnished rooms, twisting halls, unexpected flights of stairs up and down, and inner courtyards.
I remembered the stagnant pond. Now, a plume of silver water sprayed upward from a fountain. Not far below the surface of its pool, great golden koi fish were gliding silkily through the water. This was most definitely another room to return to!
The music room where the grand piano sat had been similarly transformed. Now, furnished with chairs and tables and paintings on the walls, it seemed paradoxically bigger than before. The polished Steinway at the center of things had its lid raised and music on the stand in preparation, no doubt, for whatever it was that Franc and Ewing had planned for that evening.
I was retracing my steps to the room in which I’d first encountered Zahra when, nostrils flaring, I detected Serena’s perfume. Hastening in that direction, I became aware of voices. I had well and truly lost my bearings, I realized, although I knew I was heading back toward the front of the house. As I turned a corner I heard Zahra asking, “I thought you said we had to wait?”
“I did,” came Sid’s smooth baritone voice. “But first I think we can spend a few moments together there, just the family.”
“He’ll be here very soon!” Serena replied, sounding excited.
Rounding the corner, I came to a hall where Sid was turning a key in the lock of a door, Serena at his side.
Zahra was bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement. “Can’t wait!” she kept repeating.
All three of them were dressed in the most beautiful clothes. Sid looked every inch the stately maharajah in a dark suit and Nehru-collar white shirt. Beside him, Serena was clearly his princess—she wore a coral-red dress and a gold necklace. Zahra looked somehow older and more mature in a shimmering turquoise sari.
It was Zahra who noticed me first.
“Can I bring Rinpoche?” she asked her father.
Sid and Serena turned to look in my direction.
“Rinpoche!” exclaimed Serena, stepping toward me. “What remarkable timing! How did you know?”
Sid paused, regarding me warmly. “Those we are close to can sometimes sense these things,” he murmured.
Zahra was already bending to stroke me. “Well you said, ‘just the family.’”
“So I did,” he agreed. Having turned the key, he opened the door. It led to an unusually steep staircase. “And now we are all here.”
Zahra picked me up and followed Sid and Serena on what was evidently their very first trip upstairs together. It was cool and dark in the tower. The stairs seemed to wind upward forever. I was pleased not to be attempting the ascent on my own—my legs would have been trembling with fatigue long before I made it.
Around and around we went, our footsteps on the new wooden staircase echoing through the empty chamber, until eventually there came the creak of an ancient door on its hinges. Sid led the way through an arched door at the top, through which was streaming golden light. Serena followed him. Then Zahra, holding me, joined them in the light.
The room was high above the rest of the house. All four walls consisted of large picture windows, and we happened to enter just as the sun was setting. It filled the room with a golden glow—the quality of light was warm and soft and all the more magical because we knew it would soon pass. The four of us wordlessly absorbed the radiance of it. Time stood suspended. It seemed almost too much to believe that this was happening to us. Joined together as a family for the first time in this special place, we were all mesmerized by the celestial display.
The glow over the horizon was still too strong to look at directly through the window that faced the setting sun, but Zahra carried me to the side of the tower that rose above the garden. With Sid and Serena behind us, holding each other close, we gazed over the lawns and the curving driveway far below. In the golden haze, Kusali and his immaculate waitstaff in their starched white uniforms were setting up cocktail tables. From above, the color symmetry of the flowering plants in the garden beds was strikingly apparent. From this vantage point all was order, civility, and restraint.
Stepping across the small room to the opposite window, we came face-to-face with the Himalaya mountains. From up here they felt startlingly close and looked like not just one jagged range but wave after wave of mountains stretching far into the distance. Their icy caps glistened in the sunset, and rivers poured down their sides like molten gold.
From downstairs we heard a call echoing up the tower. “He’s here!”
Zahra hurried back to the garden window to see an unmistakable figure in red robes making his way along the drive.
Behind them, Sid slipped wordlessly away. We heard his footsteps descending the staircase. Serena turned to follow him.
“Shall we come down, too?” asked Zahra.
“Perhaps stay,” Serena told her. “When His Holiness’s security people told him about the tower, he said he wanted to visit it.”
Of course he would! He may be perfectly enlightened, someone aware of more dimensions of reality than most people even knew existed, but the Dalai Lama always held a childlike curiosity about the world around him and was never afraid to express it. A high tower in a house? Of course he’d want to visit!
Zahra and I stood at the window watching the activity below. We saw Sid and Serena emerge from the house and present His Holiness with white scarves, or katags, in the traditional way. One at a time, he accepted each scarf and then placed them back over their shoulders as he held his hands around their necks briefly and murmured a blessing.
We soon heard footsteps on the tower stairs, muffled voices, and the Dalai Lama’s infectious chuckle; they were making their way to the top.
The moment the Dalai Lama appeared in the room, the light of the sun shifted, becoming softer, less dazzling. We all turned to face the horizon directly—the light entered us and we became one with it, completely absorbed in the afterglow. In his presence, it was as though we had transformed into radiance and bliss, as though he had come to remind us, in this transcendent place, of our own true nature.
The Dalai Lama eventually turned away from the horizon. After bowing toward Zahra and stroking my head briefly, he brought his palms to his heart and murmured mantras under his breath. He gazed out at first at the gardens, then the mount
ains, then through a third window that overlooked the pine forest. There, branches rippled like waves, ablaze in the golden light.
Turning toward Serena and Sid, he smiled. “You don’t need my blessings,” he said. “You will bless this home yourself with your practice of the Dharma.”
Not trusting herself to speak, Serena brought her own hands to her heart.
“Thank you, Your Holiness,” said Sid beside her.
The Dalai Lama looked from one to the other of them, then to Zahra as she placed me down carefully on one of the chairs in the center of the room. “There are very positive karmic bonds between all of you,” he said, nodding.
Zahra stroked me as I settled on the chair. “She’s my little girl,” she murmured, in response to what His Holiness had said.
“Yes,” he chimed after a moment, his voice warm. “There are few bonds stronger than between mother and daughter.”
He seemed to be replying to what she’d just said, but there was something about the way he said it that implied a great deal more. I looked up to see Zahra staring into my eyes. We held each other’s gaze for the longest time before she leaned over to kiss my head.
The Dalai Lama was gone again in a flurry of red robes. He went down the stairs and accepted a quick guided tour of the house before, accompanied by his security guards, he walked the short distance home to Namgyal.
No sooner had he gone that other visitors began to arrive, all of them eager to explore the tower from the moment they turned into the driveway and saw it. Mrs. Trinci was the first; she took her time climbing the stairs, but she was so awestruck by the view from the top that she, like us before her, was momentarily reduced to an uncharacteristically hushed reverence. Franc and Ewing followed a short while later, and then Sid and Serena insisted on having the kitchen staff and waiters up to enjoy the view while there was still light in the west. Curling up on the armchair in the center of the room, I dozed, losing track of time even in the midst of the frequent visitors and the sounds coming from downstairs—music, laughter, and champagne being uncorked.