[Buddha-l] New Buddhist Topic: Buddhism and Cats

[Richard Basham]

This tale has been on my mind. Though De Mello's telling was better and
less critical, this version will do: 

Lineage Tradition

In a Zen temple, every evening during meditation the temple's cat would
screech at the top of its voice preventing the monks from concentrating.
Eventually the Master had to order the cat to be tied and gagged during
meditation sessions, and in this way the problem was solved. 

Years passed and both the master and the cat died, and a new master was
appointed. Then a new cat was found and every evening before the
meditation, it was tied and gagged.  

Several years later, scholars at the temple wrote treatises about the
significance in Buddhist practice of tying up cats.  

    Dharma the Cat is a Buddhist comic strip of long standing.

http://www.khandro.net/animal_cat.htm

And, being a zen practice, the ritual and rationalizing is likely to
persist, or so it seems. <g>