“Yes,” continued Tashi. “That last kitten was small and dirty and could hardly walk.”
“We were going to throw it out,” Sashi added.
“I was already wrapping it in newspaper,” Tashi said. “It looked like it was almost dead.”
“Then,” said Sashi, “this rich official comes and gives us $2. Just like that.” The thrill of the moment was still etched vividly in his mind.
Mine, too.
But their feelings about the event had undergone a metamorphosis.
“We realize what a bad thing we did.” They both looked remorseful. “Just using small kittens for our own benefit.”
“I see,” nodded His Holiness.
“The youngest kitten especially,” said Tashi. “It was very weak—”
Sashi shook his head. “We were paid all that money, but the kitten probably died.”
The brothers looked at His Holiness nervously, bracing for a wrathful condemnation of their selfishness.
Only, the condemnation didn’t come.
Instead, the Dalai Lama told them seriously, “In the Dharma, there is no place for guilt. Guilt is useless. It is pointless to feel bad about something in the past that we can’t change. But regret? Yes. This is more useful. Do you both feel sincere regret for what you did?”
“Yes, Your Holiness,” they chorused.
“You are committed to never harming a living being again in that way?”
“Yes, Your Holiness!”
“When you practice compassion in meditation, think about those small kittens and the countless other weak and vulnerable beings who need your protection and love.”
His Holiness’s features lightened. “As for that very weak kitten you thought might have died, I believe you will discover that she grew into a beautiful being.” He gestured toward where I was sitting on the sill.
As they turned to look at me, Tashi exclaimed, “His Holiness’s Cat?”
“It was one of my staff who paid you the $2. We had just returned from America, and he didn’t have any rupees.”
Approaching me, they stroked the back of my head and my back.
“It is very fortunate that we all now enjoy such a good home here at Namgyal Monastery,” said His Holiness.
“Yes,” agreed Sashi. “But it is very strange karma how we have spent the past three days looking after the same cat we once sold.”
Perhaps that part wasn’t so strange. The Dalai Lama is believed to be clairvoyant. I guessed that the reason he had chosen the two novices to perform their particular task had been precisely because of their past actions. He was giving them an opportunity to make amends.
“Yes, karma propels us into all kinds of unexpected situations,” His Holiness said. “This is another reason we should behave with love and compassion toward all living beings. We never know in what circumstances we will meet up with them again. Sometimes even in this same lifetime.”
CHAPTER TEN
Have you ever been paralyzed by indecision, dear reader? Found yourself in a situation where if, on the one hand, you do this, that, or the next, a certain result may occur, but if, on the other hand, you do something different, another better result may occur—only the chances of it happening are less likely, so perhaps you’d be better off sticking with the first course of action?
You may have imagined that we cats never get caught up in such cognitive complexity. Maybe you believed that existential overload is the unique preserve of Homo sapiens.
As it happens, nothing could be further from the truth. Felis catus—the domestic cat—may not have a career to build, a commercial endeavor to attend to, or any of the whirling carousel of activities that make humans such relentlessly busy beings. But there is one area in which we are startlingly similar.
I am talking, of course, about matters of the heart.