The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Power of Meow Read Online Free PDF Page A

sleep.’” His Holiness chuckled. “This makes the novice confused. He has to confess, ‘I also eat and walk and sleep.’ So the master has to spell it out for him. ‘Yes, and when I eat, I eat. When I walk, I walk. And when I sleep, I sleep.’ Mindfulness is when we focus on the present moment, instead of being caught up in our thoughts.”
    She nodded, smiling warmly. “I came across a recent survey showing that there is a direct correlation between happiness and paying attention to what we are doing. Being in direct mode instead of narrative mode.”
    â€œExactly!” The Dalai Lama sat forward in his seat. “When we meditate, we choose to focus on just one object of meditation for a period of time. For example, we may focus on the breath. Or a mantra. For ten minutes, one hour.” He shrugged. “Whatever period is useful. When we concentrate like this, it supports our practice of mindfulness all the time.”
    â€œSo you might say that meditation helps us become more mindful in the same way that an exercise program helps keep us more physically fit?” confirmed the interviewer.
    His Holiness was nodding. “Yes. Very good. When we are mindful we have more peace, more happiness. Greater freedom.”
    The Dalai Lama went on to explain how even very busy people could create more space and contentment in their lives by mindfully drinking a cup of coffee or mindfully enjoying a shower, instead of being caught up in mental agitation. How even chores such as walking to work from the train station or ironing clothes could become opportunities to practice mindfulness.
    Putting their advice to immediate action, I mindfully licked my left paw before giving both my ears a good wash. Grooming dispensed with, I walked over to the interviewer, raised my right paw, and gently prodded her thigh. This is one of the ways that we cats test unfamiliar humans to find out whether they are willing to receive that most feline of blessings—an occupied lap.
    As a poised and graceful interviewer, she was hardly going to shove me away. But a subtle hand-blocking gesture or a crossing of her legs in the opposite direction was all I would have needed to take my cue.
    As it happened, she did neither of those things. Instead, she lifted some notes off her lap, thereby issuing the equivalent of a gilt-edged invitation. Without further ado I climbed onto her lap and circled it a few times contemplatively before settling down.
    How would I describe the lap of one of the world’s most influential digital media owners? Not too firm. Not too soft. Just right. The Goldilocks of laps, you might say. There was a warm sturdiness about that lap; it offered a nurturing safety, a safe harbor from the world beyond the lights and cameras. In many ways it seemed almost the perfect lap—except for one thing. I saw a few fine strands of dog fur, which signaled to me that felines didn’t have an exclusive place in the interviewer’s affections.
    â€œSo we tune into our five senses . . .” The interviewer resumed the conversation, but then His Holiness leaned forward, hand held up.
    â€œIn Buddhism, we have six,” he said. Then, responding to her expression of surprise, he added, “Along with visual and auditory consciousness, and so on, we also include mental consciousness. What goes on in the mind. We can be mindful of that, too.”
    â€œThat’s not the same as having thoughts, right?”
    â€œOh no!” The Dalai Lama’s eyes glinted mischievously. “If that were the case, we could all be very mindful with no effort!”
    The two of them laughed. His Holiness adjusted his glasses. “Being mindful of the mind is when we are aware of thoughts without becoming engaged with them. We see a thought merely as a thought. An act of cognition. Something temporary that arises, abides, and passes. Like a cat jumping from one side of the sofa to the