Cat Portraits

 To the left is the picture I got when I tried to catch Tashi beautifully posed on a kitchen chair. Once in a while I think of something I would buy if we had oh, plenty of money, and one thing is a good camera with less digital lag. 

And one that is better in low light.  On the other hand, limitations of the camera have led me to -  Monster Xmas Cat, below.  Her eyes burn like white-hot coals.  Right?

Life in the Animal Realm

Tashi here.

I am actually the second one of Mom'nTom's cats to express myself on the computer.  Sherlock did so a great deal many years ago, luckily it was before the internet so he couldn't bother too many people. He wrote whole books - he was a male, what can I say?  Sheba, then, she was too old to give a rat's ass (as we cats say) about Art.  But I am young and vigorous and playful. There's no telling what I'll do.

I am moved to write by the drastic situation I was able to solve just an hour ago with the very few tools I have. Mom was in the kitchen making a cup of decaf - that's one of the odd things humans do - they like a bitter stimulant because it is a stimulant; then they take the stimulant out of it and drink it.  She puts cream in hers - I do understand that. Cream is pleasant, but from what I can see, and I have a very good view down here of her bottom, she doesn't really need it.  Anyway.

I saw my opportunity.  If I try to talk to her about food matters in any other room of the house, not a chance. But we were in the kitchen.  So I wound around her legs in figure 8's, which they like, as long as they're standing still, and meowed.  Repetitively.  Monotonously.  I do not have a loud voice, for I am extremely elegant and ladylike (see photo), but it is a voice. At the same time I looked up at her, sending brain waves for all I'm worth.

It isn't easy to penetrate their brains, though sometimes when they're half-asleep, I've heard stories. But I was giving it everything, short of nipping at her. She over-reacts to that.  Voice, eyes, winding around ankles. And somehow she looked at my food tray.  And gasped.  I love it when they do that.  OMG, how could we treat the poor cat so bad?

Poor cat is right. Here in the animal realm one has far fewer choices than they do, though they waste most of theirs, if you ask me. You can hear a bit about it if you click on the animal part of the big Tibetan picture that's down on the right of the blog.  We are to the left, about 9:00.  And I must say, all he's got right is the part about limited options.  For the rest of it, yes, some animals are stuporous and dull to the world, I guess - they let people ride them.  They let people eat them.  And what dogs will do for affection, I can't even stand to say.

"Oh, poor Tashi," she exclaims. "You're out of dry food!"  I had a little soup left, I don't like my canned food that much, it's the dry that's important, so I can snack any old time.  Look harder, I said.  "Ah," she drew in a breath. "And look at your water! Poor kitty."

Oh, it's poor kitty and la la la.  When they notice.

Anyway, I got a nice fillup with the dry food, which costs about as much per pound as an English roast, it is special for my sensitive GI track.  And my water bowl, which is glass, so she can always see that it's clean, got rinsed and refilled.  The few drops I had left in case of emergency were thrown out.  That's how they are, always throwing things out. Of course, I didn't eat or drink then, but just walked away with my tail high in a question mark, as if I didn't care a bit. 

It is my personal opinion - which is about all I have to go on, for I don't really care to read, I am just a year-old kitten, and they never say anything interesting on the news - in my opinion, the whole Six Realms Buddhist thing is a metaphor. It's about being an animal-like human.  Dog-like, that is.  That kind of human, eating any damn thing they toss at you, always wanting affection, doing stupid tricks for pay.  Not cat-like. Anyone would want to be like a cat. Actually, we should be in a realm of our own.

A Householder's Practice

This morning I am on Poop Patrol, again.  Tashi has finished her doses of deworming and her antibiotic, and I need to take in another sample for fecal float, to make sure she is well.  That means I have a timer beside me to remind me to check her box every 30 minutes.  If a visual check shows disturbance of the neatly raked surface (my little Zen garden), then I have to put on mask and gloves, as I am immune-suppressed since my kidney transplant.

Zen teachers say a lot about shit (the word they use), at least compared to ministers I have known.  It is a vehicle for getting germs out of the body, so we should be cautious around it; but it is essential to life.  Believe me, I know, for as my kidney function declined over the years, constipation became a constant problem.  If your body can't get rid of waste, you are done for.  So.

It's not that I am repulsed by what the Vet calls feces, but I find it distasteful, despite all these years of tending cats.  Practice, as I get it, means we recognize that distaste, not grasp it and make a big deal, but not try to suppress it, either. This certainly is not practice as in sitting sesshin on a retreat all day.  But even in a monastery, someone has to clean the toilets. Personally, I think it should be the Abbot.  In a business, the CEO.

Okay.  Thirteen minutes to do my body practice before the next litterbox check.  I am thinking "real practice" is exactly this.
~~~~~~~~~
Later.
I ended up with only half an hour to do my bodywork and meditation, because the Poop Patrol was successful.  So it was stop everything for both me and Tom, pack that up, get dressed, put the poor cat in her carrier - her paws needed trimmed, too - and off to the Vet.  (It turned out the fecal float and stain were negative.  So we will start adjusting her diet - bland food - to see if that helps.)

Something about writing on this subject this morning made my whole day nothing but practice.  Not the easy kind, either.  If I were to write about it and explain all the occasions when I had to step back, breathe, divert the energy or anger, or step quite away from a problem, or discipline myself strongly to get my weekly pills  done, honestly, it would make a book, and I am not Virginia Woolf.  Just what Buddhists call a householder, as opposed to a monk.  I am grateful to John Tarrant for writing about practice in the lay life.  And here it is.   And here is a paragraph of it:

I think of the old story of the warrior who did zazen with such energy that all the mice in the house grew still until he had finished. His wife remarked on this and he said, "Well, this won't do, I'll have to try harder." His zazen deepened and soon, as he sat, the mice came out and played all over him, completely unafraid.

[Zen Cat image from Northern Sun]