Sunday, June 14, 2009

Ritual Cat

When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them. So the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and tied up. Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice. - Zen story

I
t is amazing that most of us are obsessed with habits.We become slaves at one point to our own habits.We don't dare to question any custom or ritual.Reasoning is not a agreeable character in our society.But have we ever thought, how it may affect us? Blindly following something doesn't helps us in any way. We don't think about what we are doing. we just do it because it's always been done that way, or because everyone else is doing it. I think a lot of us live our whole lives like this. We do this and that, over and over again, without really thinking about the significance or meaning of it. So when we stop and think, we will understand ourself, our mind wont be tied up like the cat.

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