I read Breakfast with Buddha a few months ago and was kind of enchanted so when Dinner with Buddha (3rd volume) was on sale I had to get Lunch with Buddha, too. Lunch with Buddha doesn’t have quite the same glow and it feels a bit contrived,  but it’s also a follow-up venture into  journeys,  external and internal  – of life and the road – with Americana and Buddhist ideas,   food, love and family as well as the spiritual issues of life and death.   I enjoyed it and am looking forward to Dinner with Buddha.

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Lunch with Buddha
by Roland Merullo
2012 /  392 pages
read by Sean Runnette – 10h 21m
rating –  8 (for enjoyment) /  contemp fiction
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Otto and Rinpoche head back to the western part of North Dakota and then Seattle and back to North Dakota.  Rinpoche is now married to Otto’s sister,  Cecelia and they have a child called Shelsa.
And Otto’s wife has died but his children,  Natasha and Anthony,  young adults really,  accompany the group to the retreat Cecelia and Rinpoche have established there.

The talk turns to life and death and choices,  to Jeanne,  Otto’s late wife,  and to the possibility of Shelsa being the new Dalai Lama.

It’s quite interesting and informative in its own way but I think Merullo is developing his own thinking as far as Buddhism goes.