I've read "The Dalai Lama's Cat" and absolutely loved it. So I was very eager to read this book. And it was good. Not as good as the first, but still informative and a positive read.
Rinpoche is the Dalai Lama's cat. She has a considerable amount of freedom as she rules his household and goes to a local coffee shop to hang out with her friends there. But being his cat has some responsibilities too. She has to work at improving herself and in this book he gave her the task to study the art of purring. Just why she purrs and what happiness means in general.
Rinpoche is a cat. She narrates as a cat. But she has a pretty deep sense of the world around her. And even herself at times. So even though you know that she's a cat, she does read as a human being talking. But that's ok, this is fiction. I like the way she as a cat describes the people around her and the good and bad of them. She may not be peaceful all the time, but she has a goal of peace and happiness and that really gets to the heart of what this book is about. There wasn't much of the Dalai Lama in this one though, he was mostly just someone she referred to when musing about different things.
Most will probably immediately associate this as a book about Buddhism. And it kind of is. But not in the sense that it's crammed down your throat. It's just not that type of style. It's more life lessons, things we can do to be happier, all without being overt about saying "Hey meditate and do yoga and life will be peachy!" So I appreciated it for that. And like in the first book, there always seems to be some kind of lesson that really hits home for me and what I'm currently doing in my life. I suspect it would be the same for others because it really does cover a wide variety of topics. My only compliant would be that there was more about the side characters in this book and I thought that it took a bit of the focus away from Rinpoche and the lessons she was learning. But it's a very, very small complaint.
Such a nice book and I would continue to read more the author wrote about Rinpoche and her life with the Dalai Lama. The first two will definitely have a permanent position on my bookshelf.
The Art of Purring
Copyright 2013
208 pages
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