Otto Ringling is a food book editor who is happily married and lives in a New York suburb with a family. But something is missing from his life, and he can't put his finger on what it is. His parents died recently in a car crash, and he has stopped by to pick up his sister Cecelia who does tarot and palm readings and past-life regressions. They are going to sell the family farm in North Dakota. But instead of joining him on the trip across the country, Cecelia wants him to chauffeur her spiritual teacher, Volya Rinpoche, a Mongolian monk. Otto, a Protestant, protests: "We don't shave our heads and walk around in bathrobes, and we don't seek spiritual counsel from those who do." Reluctantly, Otto puts his anger about being manipulated aside when his sister explains that she wants to hand over her share of the land to Rinpoche so he can build his first North American meditation center.

Otto decides to treat this stranger, who speaks broken English, to some fun after learning that he spent some time in a Siberian prison. They visit the Hershey's chocolate factory, go bowling, take in a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, play miniature golf, and gamble at an Indian casino. Volya proves to be a master spiritual teacher of indirection as he slowly shows Otto that belief is not as important as what you do. In a speech at a conference, the monk says: 'I think Jesus Christ wanted not so much that you worship him but that you act like him, that you be like him inside."

Otto feels something inside him shifting as Volya tutors him in slowing down, being present, unlearning bad habits, and letting go of expectations. Breakfast with Buddha is a salutary novel charting the spiritual process of transformation as Otto confronts the difficult emotions that have animated his days and comes face-to-face with impermanence.