The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Power of Meow (8 page)

His voice fell then, so that each one of us leaned forward to catch his next statement. Geshe-la said, “Of course, we cannot genuinely accept others and wish for their happiness if we don't first accept ourselves.”

He paused so his words could be absorbed. Not only his words, but the meaning behind those words. Their simplicity and significance were amplified in the sacred place.

“What is the sense in wishing for the happiness of all beings but not for our own happiness? What is the point of practicing patience with complete strangers but not with ourselves? This kind of thinking makes no sense. It is also lacking in wisdom, because the self we may believe is so hard to accept has no independent reality. We cannot find it. It's just a story we tell ourselves—a story that changes depending on our mood.

“What is the point of making up a story about ourselves that we hate? Whatever story we come up with is going to be different from the one that other people have created about us anyway—you can be sure of that.

“So relax. Let go of whatever story it is you have conceived about yourself, because it's only a story. Don't take it all so seriously. Don't fool yourself into believing that what really is only a thought is the truth.”

As Geshe-la spoke, I looked over the backs of the attendees' heads from my vantage point. Franc's in particular. I remembered Franc's harsh self-criticism as he sat at the piano. And my own self-blame this morning as I'd come to the end of my meditation session and realized I had spent almost no time at all focused on my breath.

Here in the airiness of the temple there was an easiness, a lightness that seemed to dissolve away the intensity of all those feelings. Like all the great Buddhist masters, Geshe-la was able to communicate in a way that went beyond words.

“So to cultivate compassion for others, first we begin with ourselves. And our practice must be meaningful, because superficial practice will only give superficial results. We must go beyond mere ideas and deepen our understanding. Can anyone here give me a definition of the word ‘realization'?” he asked.

Several hands immediately shot up from among the large group of monks at the front of the temple. When called upon, one of them replied: “When our understanding of an idea develops to the point that it changes our behavior.”

Geshe-la nodded. “Very good. And this development, this deepening of understanding is greatly helped by meditation. In a conventional state, the mind is usually quite agitated. What happens when you throw a rock into a choppy ocean? How much impact does it have? But take that same rock and cast it into a tranquil lake—
then
see the result.

“Same with the mind. When our minds are calm, quiet, and we consider, for example, self-compassion, our understanding deepens. There is a chance that, instead of just considering it a nice idea, we realize the truth of it. And, little by little, our behavior starts to change.”

The following day, His Holiness departed for a two-day visit to New Delhi. Left to my own devices, I allowed my afternoon visit to the Himalaya Book Café to include a doze. Before I knew it, Serena and Sam were about to take their end-of-evening hot chocolate—something of a ritual when both were on duty. The restaurant was down to its last few diners, and Serena had made her way up the low steps to the bookstore section. Two sofas were arranged on either side of a low table, and the spot provided a perfect vantage point for keeping an eye on the whole premises. Sam joined her and, a short while later, Kusali arrived bearing a tray of hot chocolates for the two of them. As on the other rare occasions that I had been around that late, he brought milk for me, too.

“That was a wonderful teaching Geshe-la gave last night,” said Serena, raising her mug of hot chocolate to her mouth.

“And the meditation that followed,” Sam agreed from the sofa opposite.

“As always, the teaching seemed just exactly what I needed to hear.”

Sam nodded and glanced over to where a man sat at Franc's piano, playing hotel-lobby standards with an assured ease. He wore chinos and a white shirt and had flowing, gray locks of hair and an air of mystery about him. I hadn't been able to place him when he walked into the café earlier that day, but when Serena introduced him to Franc I remembered where I'd seen him before. He was Ewing, one of the longtime students at the Downward Dog School of Yoga. He paid only rare visits to the Himalaya Book Café.

“It's interesting how things worked out for Franc,” Sam said.

Serena smiled.

When Franc first stepped into the café that morning with the dogs at his feet, he had been a man unburdened. Neither blazing with energy nor beset by gloom, his expression was relaxed. Under his arm, he had held some sheet music.

After waiting for the breakfast crowd to dissipate, Franc once again sat at the piano and lifted the lid. He placed the music in front of him. A Bach sonata. He played the self-contained piece of music with quiet deliberation—and a few fumbled notes, to which he made no obvious reaction. This time he didn't have an audience. The staff in the café made an elaborate show of going about their business, apparently paying him no attention. After the Bach, there came Mozart.

When Serena arrived to take over before lunch, he'd told her, “I had a very good time on the piano today. But we need more than me for a soiree. Ideally someone who can read music
and
improvise. Even better, someone who can sing.”

He'd been in the manager's office sorting out some accounts when Ewing arrived for a lunch date with a friend. As soon as Ewing stepped through the door, he had noticed the new addition to the café and made a beeline toward it.

Just as Franc had on the day it had arrived, Ewing inspected the piano with the keenest curiosity, unable to stop himself from pulling out the stool, sitting down, and raising the lid.

“Do you play?” Serena had asked.

“Oh yes. I used to be a prompter in New York and Europe,” he said in his soft American accent. “And for years I was the resident pianist in the lobby of New Delhi's Grand Hotel.”

“Of course!” Serena nodded. “I remember, now. Will you play something?”

“You wouldn't mind?”

“I'd be delighted!”

Some minutes later, Franc emerged from the manager's office, a sheaf of invoices in one hand and a calculator in the other. He stared at the source of a charming rendition of “On the Street Where You Live.” Ewing not only played the tune straight, he segued through different styles, throwing in a Chopin-like version before riffing off on a jazz interpretation.

Serena approached Franc and quietly explained Ewing's background.

“Bravo!” Franc congratulated him after he'd ended. “Can you sight-read?”

“Pretty well.”

“Are you free this Friday night to perform in a concert?”

A slow smile crept across Ewing's face. “In recent years I've been more at home in the background . . .”

“New venue, new gig,” Franc delivered with a mischievous smile. “Time to get into the foreground!”

At 7:00
P.M.
the following Friday night I was in pride of place on the top shelf of the magazine rack in the Himalaya Book Café, which had been arranged cabaret-style, with the piano near the reception counter. Tea lights in decorative colored-glass holders flickered on the tables, lending the room an intimate atmosphere. Almost all the people there were locals, friends of Franc's, café regulars, or people who had been invited especially for . . . no one knew exactly what.

At one table sat Sid, immaculate in a white, Nehru-collared shirt, chatting with Mrs. Trinci and her good friend Dorothy Cartright. Serena busied herself in the front of the house. Ludo and at least a half dozen students from the Downward Dog School of Yoga occupied several of the tables—including Merrilee, dressed in flamboyant crimson and quaffing copious quantities of champagne. Several members of His Holiness's staff were present. Tenzin and his wife, Susan, a classically trained violinist, were engaged in an animated conversation with Oliver, His Holiness's new translator. For the first time ever, His Holiness had hired a Western translator. Oliver had been born in England but fully ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk fifteen years before; apart from being able to switch effortlessly between Tibetan and English, he was also fluent in a half dozen other languages.

Franc arrived shortly after seven wearing a fawn-colored jacket, an emerald-green cravat, and the broadest of smiles. As soon as Ewing arrived, looking dapper in a dinner jacket and bow tie, Franc wasted no time in escorting him around the room. As a longtime McLeod Ganj resident, Ewing already knew many of those present, and there was a tide of good feeling as they circulated. They didn't skip greeting its most highly placed occupant.

Reaching the magazine rack, Franc gestured toward where I was sitting, paws tucked neatly beneath me. “And this is Rinpoche,” he said, using the name by which I was best known at the café, a word Tibetan Buddhists give their beloved lamas, meaning “precious.”

“Or Swami, as she is known at the Downward Dog School of Yoga!” Ewing brought his palms together and bowed. “We're already well acquainted.”

A short while later, Franc announced the start of that evening's proceedings through a microphone.

“It's curious how different people come into our lives at different times . . . ,” he began. “Although many of you have been friends with Ewing for years, I met him only recently. And I discovered that, in addition to being the most wonderful pianist, he can also sing.”

There were whoops of encouragement from Ewing's fellow yoga students, for whom this was also, evidently, fresh information.

“Ewing used to be a prompter. I'd never heard of a prompter before, but his job was to follow every note of an opera or musical and to step in if a singer forgot his or her lines.”

“
Whenever
a singer forgot his or her lines,” Ewing observed drolly, causing a burst of laughter.

“Prompters must have great voices and tremendous range. Ewing, who has lived so long in the world of music, has reconnected me to something that was the most important part of my life when I was growing up,” Franc said with feeling. “And for that I am truly grateful. And so it is my privilege to invite to our inaugural soiree Mr. Ewing Klipspringer.”

Ewing, already seated at the piano, played the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
,
to general amusement.

“I feel sure he has some wonderful things in store for us.”

I don't know what word I can use to describe the music that evening, dear reader, except for “enchanting.” None of us who had come had any idea what to expect, but from the moment Ewing began singing Bononcini's aria “Per la gloria d'adorarvi,” it became clear that this would be a night to remember.

The gathered at that night's soiree were fulsome with their applause, and as the wine flowed and the evening unfolded, their appreciation grew all the more. After a number of songs there was an instrumental interlude during which Ewing treated the audience to everything from Chopin to Count Basie. Then, to everyone's surprise, he announced that Tenzin's wife, Susan, would perform Massenet's “Meditation” from
Thaïs
.