Cat Zen

We have a number of cats that practice zazen. It was started, we think, by Old Joe, a white cat of stature among the colony. He wasn't an Alpha, nor did he assist one. He was just... a cat who stayed out of trouble, played with the kittens, and took under his wing Larry, a stray who arrived starved and dirty one day and decided to stay.

Larry is a pale ginger cat, obviously from a different strain than most of the colony members. To say he was high-strung is an understatement. He was in bad shape due to apparently not eating much or anything for days or weeks, covered with dust and deeply distrustful of us and the other cats, but he saw food and ate it ravenously. Most of the other cats tolerated him, but sometimes he'd lash out or pace frantically. Old Joe took his number and clearly said, "Hey."

Larry seemed to admire Joe and would sit beside him while restlessly grooming his shaggy and rough-textured coat. Larry is a domestic shorthair, but his fur is rough and brittle and sometimes he gets very shaggy looking as he was when he first arrived.

Joe would sit quietly, front paws nearly in a cosmic mudra, eyes half closed, counting his breaths, innn and outtt. Innnn and outttt. Larry would sit beside him, but he would be agitated and disruptive. 

Joe would breathe.

And in time, Joe got ill, and he began to fail. We knew his end wasn't long off. He seemed to know it too. Still he sat, counting his breaths, and Larry would sit beside him, slowly calming down, and from time to time we saw him counting his own breaths with half-closed eyes, and the other cats saw them, and some took instruction from them in how to zazen.

It wasn't too long thereafter that Old Joe passed on to Kitty Heaven, and Larry was left alone to zen or not on his own. It was surprising to see what he did. At first, he clearly missed Old Joe and their cat sangha sessions sitting zazen. He was agitated and lonely. He hadn't made any other friends in the colony.

But slowly we noticed his agitation reduced as more and more he practiced zazen on his own, and as he did, others learned from him. When I last checked he had at least six disciples in the colony, all of whom would practice zazen, sitting quietly with half-closed eyes counting their breaths. There may be more of them. 

Some of Modern Zen says be mindful of your intentions when sitting, and dedicate the merit of your sit to the release from suffering of all beings. Well, that's not the zazen teaching that I received so many decades ago, and others say sitting intentions and merit dedications aren't "really zen," they're something else. 

But when I watch the cats sitting zazen on their own or in a group, it seems to me they are "just sitting." Any merit is not dedicated by them but just there, if it is, for any who happen by.

Cats, as we know, are closer to nature. That some do sit zazen lets us know how close our practice is to nature as well.