Choosing to Be

"Of all animals, the cat alone attains to the contemplative life. He regards the wheel of existence from without, like the Buddha,"
Andrew Lang, 1844-1912 One rainy morning, Kat Tansey was trying to make a very important decision-should she stay and fight her debilitating depression, or should she choose to end her life? Hamlet-like, she kept turning the matter around in her mind.

The problem, as her Buddha master Maine Coon cat Poohbear Degoonacoon, explained, was that the mind she was using was her ordinary mind, not a good place to be when making a decision of irreversible magnitude.

"Before you make a choice you cannot undo, you need to understand the nature of your own mind," he said. "Whether you are a human or a cat, the same technique applies. You must learn to sit and meditate. And I happen to know more than a little bit about this," he observed, making a point of sitting down and tucking both paws under his chest in his best Buddha pose.

And thus begins Kat's journey back to herself, a journey into her own consciousness-where she learns to unlock the secrets of Buddhist meditation and find inner peace.