The Zen of Cats

Each day I wake up and ask myself what I'm doing. I race to take a shower because the snooze button is too tempting. I never sit quietly to eat and I stress over the things I want and don't have and what the jerk on the cell phone next to me is thinking as he edges into my lane. Meanwhile, my cats rest comfortably at home. They never worry about their next meal. And any stress in their lives is just transitory as long as I come home, pet them and don't act stressed around them.

In the Zen Buddhist philosophy, from my simplistic understanding, desire causes suffering. This is not a value judgement necessarily. Just that, because we want something, it causes us to suffer for it. This can be good things, like a desire to help others or can be like the Enron assholes who suffer because sixty million dollars is just not enough. The key to finding peace in all this is to become more mindful of the moment and to live in the present moment, something I still find impossible to do.

But cats have already mastered this. The world is full of a richness of smells and sounds. Their ears move every which way and they take in everything. Their skin can even sense wind speed and direction. Some say this has evolved for their hunting and survival, but isn't it also possible that this remains in their repertoire, to allow them to meditate and achieve enlightenment? If I had their senses, I would be overloaded and fall apart. For them, it's a way to experience the richness of every moment.

Ritual is also important to restore order in one's life. We try to find this in religion. But cats have already got us beat in this respect. Each time the cats lie down, they turn several times. We say this is a remnant of their nesting behavior. They are preparing the ground to lie down. But repeating this process allows them a certain level of certainty and security. Each morning they wake me 15 minutes before breakfast time for them. Each night, they grab a snack right after the light is turned off and the white noise machine is turned on. Deviation from these rituals is met with scorn and an immediate attempt to restore order. For their world is one without the chaos and dysfunction we impose upon ourselves. Their world is a world of order, of ritual and without our neurotic intrusions and occasional attacks from the vacuum monster, a world of peace and reflection