In Breakfast With Buddha by Roland Merullo, the main character Otto Ringling journeys through the states to North Dakota. Otto Ringling travels to North Dakota because his parents died in a car crash, and it is the duty of him and his sister to settle the estate. When otto arrives to pick his sister up, she has a very “special” surprise for him. She ends up not going and instead sends her friend Rinpoche on the trip along with Otto. During the beginning of the trip, Otto finds Rinpoche a little weird because of his beliefs, and character. Otto realizes that everything that is happening at this moment is because of his parent’s death. He starts thinking outside of his own box aside from food, sex, tv, and vacations. Otto starts to think that there may be more to life
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During these talks, he talks about his spiritual life, what makes the world good, and the bad in life. This is a major turning point during the trip to North Dakota, because in the beginning, Otto did not care for Rinpoche too much. In fact, at one of the talks, Otto asked very hostile questions. Afterwards he felt bad, and felt like he was being too harsh on a guy as nice as Rinpoche. The turning point during the trip was when Otto bought one of Rinpoche’s books and started reading it. “The first couple of chapters were interesting enough, but . I, thought, mostly unsurprising,” (Merullo 172). In the book, Rinpoche talks about how people’s interior life is like a room. He says people never leave the boundaries of the room because they tend to wait “for the end of his life, for God to pass judgement on him, and chase as many decent pleasures as he can while he waits,” (Merullo 173). Reading Rinpoche’s book made Otto able to understand him better. Otto finally began to understand and enjoy Rinpoche’s company, he said “It was at this point in the trip that something in my interior world began to break open,” (Merullo
During these talks, he talks about his spiritual life, what makes the world good, and the bad in life. This is a major turning point during the trip to North Dakota, because in the beginning, Otto did not care for Rinpoche too much. In fact, at one of the talks, Otto asked very hostile questions. Afterwards he felt bad, and felt like he was being too harsh on a guy as nice as Rinpoche. The turning point during the trip was when Otto bought one of Rinpoche’s books and started reading it. “The first couple of chapters were interesting enough, but . I, thought, mostly unsurprising,” (Merullo 172). In the book, Rinpoche talks about how people’s interior life is like a room. He says people never leave the boundaries of the room because they tend to wait “for the end of his life, for God to pass judgement on him, and chase as many decent pleasures as he can while he waits,” (Merullo 173). Reading Rinpoche’s book made Otto able to understand him better. Otto finally began to understand and enjoy Rinpoche’s company, he said “It was at this point in the trip that something in my interior world began to break open,” (Merullo