REVIEW: Awaken the Kitten Within by David Michie
As kittens we feel it often. All it takes is a wind-blown feather, an unexpected delicacy, or the alluring rush of water and instantly we are caught up in it: Wonderment. Enchantment. Being fully absorbed in the here and now.
By the time we reach senior status, way beyond the point of being impressed by such trivia, we have become knowing and indifferent.But we have lost something, have we not?
Which begs answers to some intriguing questions. Is it possible to recover the unaffected zest for life which once came to us so naturally? To become un-blasé? Can you and I, dear reader, awaken the kitten within?
The Dalai Lama’s Cat is confronted by a most unpleasant truth: she is getting old.
A routine visit to the vet confirms this. But is a future of decrepitude and senior cat biscuits inevitably a cause for despair? As it happens, she soon finds that a startling reminder of life’s transience is exactly what’s needed to renew our gratitude for life. To lighten up, accept ourselves, and value what truly matters.
With irrepressible mischief, the Dalai Lama’s Cat explores the intriguing insight that reality is a projection of our mind. In so doing, she comes to discover that awakening the kitten within is not just possible – it is our purpose! For when we do so with a particular wisdom, we catch a glimpse of our own sublime nature. With a benevolent energy that reaches from the pages, this is the Dalai Lama’s Cat at her most tender, irreverent, joyful best.
Dear Mr Mitchie,
I fell in love with HHC’s story in book one of this series “The Dalai Lama’s Cat.” In it she was a little cheeky and at times displayed such cattitude – as would be expected of the Most Beautiful Creature That Ever Lived. The next three books continued her story as she settled into life with the Dalai Lama and learned more about Buddhism. But something about this book didn’t pull me in and make me adore it as much.
Strangely, even though HHC is the one “watching” what is happening, I felt as if I was being told instead of being shown what is happening. The insights gained are written as the humans understanding them rather than HHC being the one to do so. There were fewer fun and funny antics of HHC and more time was spent describing the humans doing things and HHC only observing them. In other words, I felt as if HHC were merely on the sidelines and not a central player in the story. The “irreverent, vain and delightfully insightful” cat I’d come to know and love just wasn’t much of any of those descriptors.
The messages of the book were shown from several angles as various humans seek and try to understand the themes of death and rebirth. After the fourth or fifth variation on this, complete with similar explanations, I felt I had “got it” and when these were presented yet again, I began skimming a bit. Just a bit but then I’d never done that before in a book in this series. This one could have used a bit of editing and reworking of the many, many “as you know, Bob” conversations in which two or more Buddhist devotes nattered on and debate with each other after which the one whose question initiated the discussion instantly understood the deeper meanings that needed to be conveyed to the reader. Had this been the first book I’d read, I doubt I would have read any of the others. Yay for HHC but ‘meh for most of the rest as it also seemed that the main point of the book – and title – got lost. C
~Jayne
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