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

toward the sofa opposite where he was sitting. I ripped into its fabric as I scrambled up its side, a savage creature clawing its way up a perilous cliff. Then with a final, frenzied burst, I launched myself off one arm of the sofa, leaping toward the other.
    It was only at this point that I realized the sofa was occupied by a beautiful blond-haired woman. She was halfway through a sentence, and my unscheduled, airborne appearance caught His Holiness’s guest completely by surprise.
    You know how, when something truly unexpected happens, time can seem to slow down? Well, that’s how it was. As I flew past the woman’s face, her expression turned from one of calm engagement to total surprise.
    As she pushed back in her seat to avoid me, the shock etched on her features could not have been more stark.
    But she was no more shaken, dear reader, than me. I hadn’t been expecting anyone on the sofa, let alone a TV celebrity, nor one who was mid-interview. As I headed toward the opposite end of the sofa, for the first time I observed the lighting. The cameras. The crew watching the action from the shadows. By the time I landed, all the demonic energy that had propelled me from the other end of the sofa was gone.
    I was, no longer, a Snow Lion possessed.
    She looked at me. I looked at her. Both of us were taking in what had just happened. It was only then that I remembered conversations in the executive assistants’ office during recent weeks about her expected visit. As a feline of considerable experience in diplomatic circles, I am not one to name-drop about the Dalai Lama’s visitors. Let me just say that the woman concerned was an American of Greek descent. One who founded an online media outlet that went on to become one of the fastest growing in the world. An author herself, one of her most recent books concerns what it means to thrive. There , that’s as many hints as I’m willing to disclose.
    As the woman and I regarded each other closely, from across the coffee table there came a gentle chuckle.
    â€œShe likes to do this, sometimes,” said His Holiness. “Especially if I spend too much time at my desk.”
    â€œ This is HHC?” asked the Dalai Lama’s guest, her voice sonorous and merry. To give credit where it is due, she seemed to have landed on her feet just as quickly as I had.
    His Holiness was nodding.
    â€œWell,” she said, glancing over at where I sat, blue-eyed and looking so innocent that you would not even believe a clot of cream would melt in my pink mouth. “I didn’t think I’d be welcoming two celebrities to the show.”
    â€œYou like cats?” the Dalai Lama asked, gesturing in my direction.
    â€œOh yes!” There was genuine warmth in her accented voice. “I believe that pets can teach us in many ways. Just like you say, they can be wonderful reminders to us to get out of our heads and live in the moment.”
    His Holiness was nodding with enthusiasm. “Yes, yes. They can bring us back to here and now. Not be caught up in too much thinking.”
    â€œWhich brings us back to mindfulness,” she continued in a seamless segue back to what had evidently been the subject of their interview. “We hear so much about mindfulness these days. But is it the same as meditation, or is there a difference?”
    The Dalai Lama was nodding. “This is a very good question,” he said. “There is much confusion. You see, when we practice mindfulness we are present to this moment, here and now, on purpose and without judgment. We pay attention to what is coming through our sense doors. What we hear”—he pointed toward his ears—“what we taste. And so on.”
    His Holiness paused, a sparkle appearing in his eyes. “There is a famous story about a novice monk who asks an enlightened master, ‘Tell me, what is the secret of happiness?’ The master tells him, ‘I eat and I walk and I