The Dalai Lama's Cat

Author: David Michie

• we need to protect all sentient beings very much. Also, we must recognize that we share the same two basic wishes: the wish to enjoy happiness and the wish to avoid suffering.”

• In the hours that followed, as I sat in the tranquil sunlight of His Holiness’s window, I began to realize the enormity of what I’d done. For almost all my young life I had been listening to the Dalai Lama point out that the lives of all sentient beings are as important to them as our own life is to us. But how much attention had I paid to that on the one and only occasion I was out in the world?

• I was beginning to realize that just because an idea is simple, it isn’t necessarily easy to follow.

• A medium between the material world and spiritual realms, the Nechung Oracle is the State Oracle of Tibet.

• Only this morning at the temple, we saw novice monks competing for admission to the monastery. There are too many novices and not enough places. But turning to the jail, nobody wants to go there, even though the conditions are easier than in a monastery. This proves that it is not so much the circumstances of our lives that make us happy or unhappy but the way we see them.”

• “Do we believe that, whatever our circumstances, we have the chance to live happy and meaningful lives?”

• “Most people think that their only option is to change their circumstances. But these are not the true causes of their unhappiness. It has more to do with the way they think about their circumstances.”

• “It would be wonderful if everyone could hear that message—especially those who live in jails of their own making.”

• “The purpose of Buddhism is not to convert people. It is to give them tools so they can create greater happiness. So they can be happier Catholics, happier atheists, happier Buddhists.

• “that the best way to achieve happiness for oneself is to give happiness to others.”

• By letting go of the unhappiness-creating belief that I needed another cat, I would convert my jail into a monastery.

• I began to see that up the hill, happiness was sought by cultivating inner qualities, beginning with mindfulness but also including such things as generosity, equanimity, and a good heart. Down the hill, happiness was sought from external things—restaurant food, stimulating holidays, and lightning-quick technology.

• They found that people are much happier when they’re mindful of what they’re doing.” “Because they only pay attention to things they enjoy?” asked his wife. He shook his head. “That’s just it. Turns out that it’s not so much what you’re doing that makes you happy. It’s whether or not you’re being mindful of what you’re doing.

• Dissatisfaction with the material world is—what do you say?—vital to spiritual development.”

• He didn’t get any further before the Dalai Lama began laughing. “Oh, no!” he said. “Becoming a monk is not a true cause of happiness either!”

• Two main true causes of happiness: first, the wish to give happiness to others, which Buddhists define as love, and second, the wish to help free others from dissatisfaction or suffering, which we define as compassion.

• We expect the meditators to have greatest happiness when their minds are completely calm and relaxed. But the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the part linked to positive emotion, lights up when people meditate on the happiness of others. Therefore, the more ‘other-centric’ we are, the happier we can be.”

• “A man arrives home to find a huge pile of sheep manure has been dumped on his front yard. He didn’t order the manure. He does not want it. But somehow, it is there, and his only choice now is to decide what to do with it. He can put it in his pockets and walk around all day complaining to everyone about what happened. But if he does this, people will start avoiding him after a while. More useful is if he spreads the manure on his garden.

• If we are wise, the greatest problems can lead to the greatest insights.”

• I did not, however, climb into his basket and let him lick my face.

• I’m not that kind of cat. And this is not that kind of book.

• Envy and resentment were demanding emotions that had disturbed my own peace of mind.

• “If hard work is only a condition, then what is the karmic cause for success?” she asked. His Holiness gave her a look of immense benevolence. “Generosity,” he answered. “The success you currently enjoy arises from your past generosity. And the generosity you are practicing now means that you will enjoy more success in the future.”

• Because you give someone something one day doesn’t mean you have created the cause to receive exactly the same thing another day. Karma operates not so much as some external credit-and-debit ledger but more as an energy, a charge that grows over time. This is how even small acts of generosity, especially when motivated by the best intention, can become causes for much greater wealth in the future.”

• Our experience of reality is a lot more subjective than we generally realize. We are not simply passive receptors of events. At all times we are actively projecting our own personal version of reality onto the world around us. Two people in the same circumstances will have very different experiences of what happened. This is because they have different karma.

• ‘The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character.

• And who, pray tell, occupies the majority of your thoughts from the moment you wake up till the time you go to sleep? Who, exactly, is the cause of your greatest anxiety and stress?

• what seemed to be the worst thing that could ever happen to them turned out, with the benefit of hindsight, to be the very best.”

• Was this not a prime case of egocentric melodrama?

• I am not, regrettably, talking about being a gourmet. I, dear reader, am a glutton.

• I am certainly not proud to have been so much in thrall to food. Is there any culture on Earth that admires the greedy guts, the sybarite, the unfettered hedonist?

• But to repeat that question to which both philosophers and financial advisers devote so much of their energy: how much is enough?

• “When one is angry, the first person to suffer is oneself. No one who is angry has a happy, peaceful mind.”

• “Remember the words of the Buddha: ‘Though one man may conquer a thousand men a thousand times in battle, he who conquers himself is the greatest warrior.’”

• When we see for ourselves there is a problem, change becomes much easier.”

• “In the Dharma, there is no place for guilt. Guilt is useless. It is pointless to feel bad about something in the past that we can’t change. But regret? Yes. This is more useful.

• “The Indian Buddhist guru Shantideva had some wise words on this very subject,” Lobsang said. He began to quote: “‘When crows encounter a dying snake, / They will act as though they were eagles. / Likewise, if my self-confidence is weak, / I shall be injured by the slightest downfall.’

• Subtlety, I was discovering, was not my admirer’s middle name.

• lack of self-confidence was considered, in Buddhism, to be a form of laziness, a weak mind that had to be overcome.

• “From our perspective, the only way to enjoy a state of permanent happiness and avoid all suffering is to achieve enlightenment. This is why bodhichitta is considered to be the most altruistic of motivations.