Dinner with Buddha, by Roland Merullo
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Dinner with Buddha, by Roland Merullo
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If life is a journey--with detours, paths from which to choose, and myriad roadblocks to overcome--then Otto Ringling is most certainly on the journey of a lifetime. The first fifty or so years of Otto's journey were pretty good. He felt he had it all until one day he didn’t. Looking for answers, he calls on his enlightened brother-in-law, Volya Rinpoche, a wise man with Russian roots, a Tibetan heritage, and an international reputation as a spiritual teacher. The two men first got to know each other on a journey years before, during which they explored both the real and spiritual aspects of the world around them. Now Otto needs his brother-in-law’s wisdom once more, and this time it turns out that Rinpoche himself is also looking for guidance. They embark on a road trip over highways and back roads across the middle of America, hoping to sort out what’s troubling them. They encounter a diverse cast of characters along the way as they look for answers to life’s mysteries. With its highs and lows, their trip is, of course, a metaphor for life’s larger journey. But it is also a lesson in love and gratitude.The two travelers peer beneath the surface of things to seek a deeper purpose. Luckily, for them and for us, we never know what’s waiting around the next bend in the road. “We, like Otto, find our cynicism worn away by Rinpoche’s gentle instruction in the simple but terribly difficult art of letting go, living each moment to the fullest, seeing the sacred in the everyday . . . This brave, meditative author has carved a unique niche in American literature.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Dinner with Buddha, by Roland Merullo - Amazon Sales Rank: #247397 in Books
- Brand: Merullo, Roland
- Published on: 2015-06-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.30" h x 1.30" w x 5.80" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 320 pages
Dinner with Buddha, by Roland Merullo Review “Diners, truck stops, Indian reservations, national landmarks, Las Vegas--all lead the duo down the road to both prayerful seeking and hilarious adventure. Otto's first-person narration lends a memoir-like tone, and references to current events (Pope Francis, the 2016 election, fracking) offer a sense of immediacy. Likable Otto and wise Rinpochet lead readers on a thoughtful and memorable journey.” —Shelf Awareness for Readers, starred review “With six unconventionally religious novels to date, this brave, meditative author has carved a unique niche in American literature.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Merullo offers keen insight into and intelligent assessments of modern American life, but it is his compassionate portrait of a grieving Otto in search of inner tranquility that is most affecting.” —Booklist “Merullo masterfully depicts the struggles of practicing mindfulness moment by moment . . . [the] novel is full of nuanced, thoughtful prose and is an immensely satisfying conclusion to the series.”—Publishers Weekly “Otto is such a full human, which is why we can empathize with his questions and immerse ourselves in his experiences. In the end, we are all humanized by the spiritual journey of Dinner with Buddda.” —Spirituality and Practice
From the Author Roland Merullo reflects on the "Buddha" trilogyWhat started out as a simple road trip from New York to North Dakota has evolved into a trilogy -- Breakfast with Buddha, Lunch with Buddha, and, soon, Dinner with Buddha. In Breakfast, my original intention was to introduce an ordinary American, Otto Ringling, to the wisdom of the East, especially their emphasis on meditation and contemplation. Once I got started along that path, though, I realized that I'd have to walk with him (or, I guess, ride with him, since they are all road-trip books) deeper into the sometimes exhilarating, sometimes discouraging forest of a true spiritual life.I wanted him to have a deepening understanding of himself and of the world he inhabits. In order to do that, I needed to take him through love as well as loss and epiphany as well as disappointment. And, since I see these novels, also, as observations on modern American life, I wanted him to see other parts of this great nation. Lunch takes him and Rinpoche (and sometimes other family members) from Seattle to North Dakota. Dinner takes them from North Dakota, through the West's wide-open spaces, and deposits them in a city not exactly known for its emphasis on things spiritual.Though all three books have a spiritual/philosophical core, I'm not out to preach or convert. What I try to do is to explore the larger questions of meaning without simply repeating the tenets of any one faith. I want to take a common-sense look at life, American life especially, a balanced, original, thought-provoking look. Like most of us, Otto is steeped in a Western way of thinking about the world. His is an exterior philosophy: be a good husband, father, and citizen; do no harm, and if there is an afterlife, you will be rewarded. The Eastern way -- best stated, perhaps, by Jesus' line "the kingdom of heaven is within you" -- focuses more on the interior world, on the working of the mind and the techniques one might use to change those patterns that are damaging or unhelpful.In Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, I worked to strike a balance between those two world-views, letting Otto keep some of his practical, Midwestern ethics, but also letting him gradually open himself to Rinpoche's focus on the "thought stream", on things interior.It can be weighty material. I understood that going into the first book and so I did everything I could to make the story strong enough, the characters interesting enough, and the book itself funny enough that it wouldn't come close to the dangerous territory of pious preachery (my word). The response so far has been absolutely surprisingly wonderful. Six years after its publication, Breakfast continues to sell and continues to be a book club favorite. Lunch, still in its early childhood, shows every sign of following in its older cousin's footsteps. Dinner will be out in the spring of 2015.I can't see myself going on and on after this trilogy is all in print. But I do have to admit to considering one more piece of Otto's spiritual path, one last step that I need to put him through. I welcome suggestions for a title, but I think that fourth book will be something a little bit different, not an American road trip at all. Maybe an end to the story, if there could possibly be such a thing.
From the Back Cover
“We are all humanized by the spiritual journey of Dinner with Buddha.”* If life is a journey--with detours, paths from which to choose, and myriad roadblocks to overcome--then Otto Ringling is most certainly on the journey of a lifetime. His first fifty or so years were pretty good. He felt he had it all, until one day he didn’t. Seeking understanding, he calls on Volya Rinpoche, a wise man and spiritual leader. A man who accepts the world as it comes to him, a man without pride or vanity. But Rinpoche, as it turns out, is experiencing his own time of doubt. In hopes of finding answers to life’s mysteries, the two embark on a journey through America, an amusing and enlightening road trip that becomes a lesson in love and gratitude. “Diners, truck stops, Indian reservations, national landmarks, Las Vegas--all lead the duo down the road to both prayerful seeking and hilariousadventure . . . Likable Otto and wise Rinpoche lead readers on a thoughtful and memorable journey.” —Shelf Awareness for Readers, starred review “Merullo offers keen insight into and intelligent assessments of modern American life, but it is his compassionate portrait of a grieving Otto in search of inner tranquility that is most affecting.” —Booklist “Otto is such a full human, which is why we can empathize with his questions and immerse ourselves in his experiences." —*Spirituality and Practice “We, like Otto, find our cynicism worn away by Rinpoche’s gentle instruction in the simple but terribly difficult art of letting go, living each moment to the fullest, seeing the sacred in the everyday.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Merullo masterfully depicts the struggles of practicing mindfulness moment by moment . . . [The] novel is full of nuanced, thoughtful prose and is an immensely satisfying conclusion to the series.” —Publishers Weekly
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Most helpful customer reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful. so I could compare my own experiences with those enjoyed by Otto and Volya By MTBearded1@aol.com 44 of 75 for 2015. Every now and again a book comes into my possession that I feel is life-changing. Dinner with Buddha fits that description. This was a book I had to read. It's a road-trip book, and I'll admit that I'm a sucker for that genre. Furthermore, it's a road trip book covering roads and places I've seen myself, so I could compare my own experiences with those enjoyed by Otto and Volya. But like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or The Celestine Prophecy, Dinner with Buddha is so much more than a simple narrative of places to go, people to see. I am no Buddhist, nor do I spend much (hardly any) time in meditative practice, but Merullo's story of a North Dakota boy, retired (not of his own choosing) from a successful New York City career, traveling the West with his brother-in-law, a Russian-Tibetan Monk, spoke deeply to me. One example: we talk often of how our diet is so much worse than that of our grandparents (who really didn't know "fast food"). We talk about how our "lifestyle" is not as healthy as that of our grandparents because we sit all day while they were working with their bodies, burning calories and stoking their metabolism. We talk about our attention spans being shorter (especially for our children) because we are constantly bombarded with images through our various media and video games that our forebears did not experience. Merullo brings forth another aspect of loss in our modern lives: the innate meditative experience of repetitive work. Walking behind a horse while plowing a field allowed for an inner communion that even today's farmer doesn't have, riding in his air-conditioned tractor with the sound system playing U-2 (or whatever). Dinner with Buddha is an excellent argument for the need to slow down, experience life, yes, meditate. I heartily recommend this book to everyone! (And for the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge, it's copyright is 2015.)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Fast-paced, funny and profound By Clarke Crutchfield Further adventures of Otto, transplanted New York book editor, and his brother-in-law Rinpoche, a Buddhist holy man, tricky wrestler and fledgling student of Americana who also knows his way around a Vegas craps table. They're on a fast-paced and funny road trip through the American West. This is the best of the three "Buddha" books, and I really loved the first two as well. You don't need to have read the other two books first, but you'll want to check them out after you savor this witty and profound work.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. All roads lead to real-time discoveries, and all characters have rich interior lives By Bookreporter “Honey, if you can hear me, send me a little advice now. I’m fifty-two. I could live to be eighty or ninety and what am I going to do with myself for all those decades? No one wants to hire a fifty-two-year-old ex-editor, and I’m not sure I want to go back to working full-time in any case. I’d give anything to be able to sit down with a glass of wine and talk this over with you. I’m adrift. Help me out if you can.”The world is too much for Otto Ringling. Despondent after the passing of his beloved wife, Jeannie, he suddenly finds himself unemployed, mourning the loss of his dog, experiencing the pangs of empty nest syndrome, and entirely consumed by “sadness on all fronts.” At a spiritual crossroads (“I wasn’t sure, any longer, that there were answers to the big questions: why we suffer, why we die, why we’re born in the first place”), the main character in Roland Merullo’s much-anticipated follow-up to BREAKFAST WITH BUDDHA leaves the harsh, all-too-real, sophisticated world of New York City for a three-week hiatus in his parents’ North Dakota farmhouse.Attempting to free himself from an inner “circus of despair,” Otto luxuriates in the blanket of “beautiful silence” and the “occasional bursts of song from a meadowlark” in the high-plains August heat. But there is no rest for the weary. When his eccentric sister Seese (aka Cecilia) announces with great urgency that she’s had a dream, Otto knows “by virtue of some mysterious sibling intuition" that he has entered risky territory.Seese’s vision requires Otto to join her Russian monk husband, Volya Rinpoche, on a sojourn to a mountainous region to find a person who is going to help her seven-year-old daughter save the world. Although convinced that mountains have nothing to offer but inadequate Internet reception and the absence of pad thai, Otto, eager for a change in fate, decides to embark on the trip in search of healing, enlightenment or, as his inner cynic grumbles, God knows what.What follows is an entirely delightful cross-country excursion across North Dakota and South Dakota, through vast rolling stretches of dry, dusty lands, past Sioux and Apache reservations, the mounds and swales of Nebraska’s sandhills, the bleak featureless landscape of Northwestern Colorado, beyond the jagged, majestic Rockies, along the serpentine roads of Utah Route 128 to Bryce Canyon’s Zion National Park to the glittery themed hotels on Las Vegas’s Strip. All the while, throughout the story, Rinpoche encourages Otto to carve out time to meditate and provides reassuringly sage bits of advice: “Soak the love on us in this world spinning and let us go the road we supposed to go.”Merullo’s soulful, deeply satisfying novel takes readers on a spirited madcap adventure. All roads lead to real-time discoveries, and all characters have rich interior lives.Reviewed by Miriam Tuliao
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