Breakfast with Buddha is a 2007 spiritual conversion narrative novel by American author Roland Merullo.

According to this story, Otto Ringling, an editor of food books who lives in New York and a skeptic, reluctantly goes onto a road trip with Volya Rinpoche, a Siberian monk.

Otto is a 44-year-old American who lives in a suburb of New York City and is a senior editor at a Manhattan publishing house which specializes in books on food.

The story starts at a point when Otto's parents have been killed in a car crash in North Dakota.

She is fascinated by the spiritual and mystic aspects of life to such an extent that Otto looks down upon her and believes her to be "as flaky as a good spanakopita crust".

Otto interprets this as philosophical or spiritual advice and decides not to heed it, but realizes what Rinpoche actually meant when they encounter heavy traffic on the highway due to a car crash.

During the talk, Otto asks Rinpoche, irreverently, why it is necessary to learn and try to improve if one is happy at the current situation.

Next morning, Otto tells Rinpoche that wanting to be accepted in society motivates people to do good instead of bad.

But I was beginning, just beginning, to sense something beneath the act, some force, some disguised dignity..." While stopping for tea in Oberlin, Ohio, Otto buys a book written by Rinpoche, named The Greatest Pleasure without Rinpoche's knowledge.

When the two dine in a Thai restaurant, Rinpoche notices a man sitting at a table close to theirs, who was wearing earphones and talking to his young daughter.

They get assigned to a bowling lane next to a boisterous group of men and women, who were all tattooed and who smoked and drank.

During the game, amidst all the noise, Rinpoche falls asleep with a very peaceful expression, which captivates Otto.

He has read books on various religions and has gone on retreats based on Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, Christian, Quaker/solitary ideologies.

He cites Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Anita Shreve, Steven Cramer, among others, as writers who have influenced his work.

[3] Joanne Wilkinson wrote in the Booklist, "The skillful Merullo, using the lightest of touches, slowly turns this low-key comedy into a moving story of spiritual awakening.

"[4] Kirkus Reviews said, "...Merullo has grown so persuasive over the course of two luminous little novels that readers might well follow him even if he turned next to, say, Mornings with Mohammed.

[8] A blogger on Boston Bibliophile, a book blog, was of the opinion that, "The only flaw I found was the sense I had about 7/8 of the way through that Otto's transformation came on a little quickly, but re-reading the beginning dispelled this impression a little or at least softened it with the sense that okay, yes, it's a believably ongoing process... charming, sweet, beautifully written book.