Download The Longmont Buddhist Temple study group, “Buddhist

The Longmont Buddhist Temple study group, “Buddhist Conversations,” will
meet Tuesday September 11 from 6:30-7:45 p.m. at Barbed Wire Books, 5th and
Main St. in Longmont, to discuss the novel Breakfast With Buddha. Even if you
haven’t read the book, you’re welcome to attend. Please join our conversation
about the themes brought up in the book, some of which are included in the
thought questions below. If you need information on how to borrow the book,
please contact Susan Fisher at [email protected] or 303-678-8426.
Breakfast With Buddha by Roland Merullo
Thought Questions
1. Breakfast With Buddha is the story of Otto Ringling’s journey on three levels: a physical
road-trip from New York City to North Dakota, an emotional trip to deal with his
parents’ deaths, and a spiritual trip with his guide, Volya Rinpoche. How are these
journeys intertwined? How do our physical, emotional and spiritual lives interconnect?
2. Otto has an anger problem. (Chapter 8: traffic jam, Chapter 9: Rinpoche’s
“proselytizing,” Chapter 11: Rinpoche’s offer to teach him, Chapter 14: Otto gets angry
at himself.) Why do you think Otto gets so angry? Under what circumstances? What
makes you angry? Where does this anger come from? How does it affect you? Teach
you? Change you?
3. In Chapter 11, Otto gets his first lesson from Rinpoche, who puts a handful of dirt in a
glass of water, and compares it to the cloudiness of our lives. “Family love is the best
practice for dying,” Rinpoche says. “Love makes the water in the glass clean.” How does
the love in your life clear away the “dirt” and make the path clear? Who is “family”?
Why did the Rinpoche talk about “practice for dying” in relation to the cloudiness in our
lives?
4.
In Chapter 14, Rinpoche says “…you will suffer and you will learn. But also the good…
Each of these things acts as teacher for you. …The purpose (of this learning) is life itself.
This is what life is for, this education of the spirit inside you. Everyone says this. Every
teacher in all religions.” Think about how the bad things in life have taught you. The good
things. Do we all learn the same things from the same circumstances? How do we know
when what we think we have learned is authentic and true?
5. In Chapter 14, Rinpoche asks Otto why he does good instead of bad. Otto isn’t sure.
Rinpoche says “Not sure is all right.” Why do you do good instead of bad? Do you think
not sure is all right? Better than all right?
6. In Chapter 25, there is a discussion of impermanence vs. permanence that echoes our
May Buddhist Conversations topic. Rinpoche says “I do not believe enlightenment means
the end. How can there be this end? End would be…no more light, no more atomic
particles. …How could this be?” Is light, or the Pure Land, or anything else permanent?
7. In Chapter 25, Rinpoche goes on to discuss the meaning of enlightenment.
“…enlightenment is a big shift inside your eyes, a different way to use your mind so you
can understand some of God. But maybe not one shift, but many small shifts. You change
your spiritual condition—by prayer, by meditation, by the way you live, the way you
decide to think, by the lessons you learn in living this life with a good intention—and
then, when this happens…the way you see the world changes.” Do you agree with this
definition of enlightenment? Have you ever experienced a shift in the way you see the
world? Did this make the world change for you?
8. In Chapter 27, Rinpoche says “What difference it makes what you believe? What
happens will happen anyway, exactly same, no matter what you believe. What you do
makes the important part, what you do. …And what you think matters. All that we are is
the result of what we have thought.” Does what we believe and what we do coincide? Is it
more important to believe in things or to do things? How does your thinking change you?
9. Chapter 45, the final chapter, ends Otto’s physical journey. How has he progressed in his
spiritual journey? Do you think he’d be likely to continue along his new spiritual path?
What indications do you have that he might?
10. What else struck you as you read this novel? What did you learn from it? About yourself?
About life? Write your own reflections or questions or insights in the space below, and
bring them to the group on Sept. 11th. If the group so chooses, we may extend the
conversation to the next meeting on Oct. 9th.