I recently welcomed a new kitten into my home. His name is Henry and he is a handful. So much so that we have taken to calling him “Henry the Hooligan.”
Henry started out life as a stray. He and his siblings were left in a box in front of an animal shelter. My mother adopted him, and then she found out that she’s allergic to cats. How she lived on the Earth for six decades without realizing that she has a cat allergy is beyond me, but it quickly became clear that Henry would need to be rehomed. So I took him in.
“We already have plenty of animals, including two cats,” I thought. “What is one more added to the list?” Little did I know that kittens come with their own special set of challenges. The primary issue is that they have all of the weapons and instincts of an apex predator—teeth, claws, quick reflexes, and so on. But they have no idea when or how to use them.
In the early days, Henry’s favorite game was to bite down on my hand as hard as his tiny teeth would allow. And I couldn’t walk from one room to another without him pouncing on my feet like a lion chasing a gazelle.
Needless to say, cat bites hurt and having cat scratches between my toes was more than a little annoying. But whenever I began to feel frustrated, I would look at Henry’s face and note that there was not a hint of anger or malice in his eyes. Quite the opposite, he looked happy. Clearly, he thought that we were playing a game and his little kitty-brain did not realize that he was causing harm.
Thankfully, our other cats, Finn and Enso, have taken up the task of teaching him manners, and I’m glad to report that Henry’s behavior grows a little better with each passing week. That said, I think there is an important lesson that we can learn from his shenanigans.
When the Buddha was asked to explain the source of human suffering, he responded by saying, “Greed, anger, and ignorance.” These are known as the three poisons because even a small drop of one or all of them can wreak havoc on our lives.
In Henry’s case, the problem was ignorance. He had no idea what he was doing when he bit my hands or attacked my feet. He was just acting on instinct, testing the limits of what his body could do. His ignorance of the danger his teeth and claws present caused him to hurt me accidentally. Because he is a cat it is easy to write this off as a mistake and practice forgiveness.
But forgiveness becomes much more challenging when we are dealing with people. This is probably because we expect more of humans than we do of kittens who are only a few weeks old. We expect people to have the self-awareness to know the consequences of their actions and the empathy to understand when they are causing harm to others.
But the truth is that humans can be incredibly ignorant—even more so than cats. And if we think too highly of them; thinking that they are not filled with greed, anger, and ignorance, like every other sentient being, our lives will be filled with frustration and disappointment.
However, if we approach our interactions with people from the viewpoint that we are dealing with an ignorant being who may use their claws when they are not supposed too, then we will not take it so personally when they misbehave.
We will be able to forgive them and move on with our lives in the same way that we would with a misbehaving kitten. Of course, this does not mean that we use ignorance as an excuse for misdeeds, or that we allow people to mistreat us out of some false sense of spirituality.
Whenever Henry uses his claws inappropriately, I pick him up and put him down far away from me, making it clear that the game is over. But because I understand his actions are not coming from a place of malice, I can do this without feeling anger toward him. Similarly, when people misbehave, it is important that we politely explain the problem to them and possibly offer solutions.
In the best case scenario, they will own up to their mistake and we can continue the relationship without further incident. At worse, we may have to take measures to ensure that they cannot harm us again. Potentially, we could set boundaries in terms of the behavior that we will accept from them or limit our interactions with them if they insist on violating our boundaries.
In either case, however, we will be able to respond without feelings of hurt or frustration because we know the source of the problem and we know we did everything in our power to fix it.
Namu Amida Butsu
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Meditation Over a Kitten: Transcendence from Where We Are
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An Interview with Ron Epstein on Responsible Living: Explorations in Applied Buddhist Ethics—Animals, Environment, GMOs, Digital Media
Engaging the Six Paramitas to Care for Animals, Part Two: Diligence, Concentration, and Wisdom
Engaging the Six Paramitas to Care for Animals, Part One: Generosity, Discipline, and Patience
