Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo
Stretching the Mind and Body
Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo is
about a man who takes an unexpected cross-country road trip with a spiritual
guru. As Otto reluctantly chauffeurs a monk from New Jersey to North Dakota he stops to show him slices of American
life while the monk slowly gets Otto to open his mind about reincarnation,
meditation and the meaning of life. The
Rinpoche (rin-po-shay, a title of respect) even tricks Otto into taking a yoga
class.
This book was a gentle and
enjoyable tour through the U.S. and the beginning of a teacher/student relationship.
Both Otto and the Rinpoche were easy to like and the book was thought-provoking
without being too preachy. In fact, I felt a little refreshed after I finished the
book. It offered a positive light on
spirituality, not religion. No doom or
gloom, just little encouragements to self-betterment.
I give it an uplifting,
thought-provoking, amusing thumbs-up.
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Although this book made me contemplate
the benefits of meditation, it did not necessarily make me want to run out and
do yoga—been there done that. My own
yoga experience about twenty years ago taught me four things:
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| Still nimble a decade after yoga. |
1. Yoga is a serious workout. They make it look easy, but you’re stretching dormant muscles that will feel like they're going to explode the day after
working out.
2. Yoga stretches the intestines. When intestines are stretched they may at
times release pent-up gases. Thank God
this didn’t happen to me, but it was a frightening lesson that it COULD happen
to anyone. One poor, middle-aged man in
his sweats and t-shirt was dragged to the class by his wife. While he was doing a downward-facing dog, a boisterous upward
fart ripped through the silence and the entire class heard it. Talk about embarrassing!
3. Yoga instructors may have reached higher
levels of enlightenment, but they are still human, and can inadvertently
humiliate the humblest of their students.
One time in class, as I was trying to do my poses, the teacher ran up to
me excitedly and grabbed my belly congratulating me (loudly) on my pregnancy in
front of the entire class. One
problem: I wasn’t pregnant. I had my son a year prior and was still
trying to deflate that baby bump. (A baby bump doesn’t quite dissipate as easily
with the second child.) My teacher
apologized profusely for her error; in the end she was probably more
embarrassed than I was (or, maybe not).
4. Sometimes it’s okay to skip a yoga class. Although
Happy Reading, Happy
Enlightenment,
Annette
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