{"id":5328,"date":"2013-02-14T23:06:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-15T04:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=5328"},"modified":"2013-02-14T23:07:33","modified_gmt":"2013-02-15T04:07:33","slug":"a-cat-a-ribbon-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/02\/a-cat-a-ribbon-meditation.html","title":{"rendered":"a cat, a ribbon, & meditation ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Why can’t I focus on my meditation like I focus to play with my cat? Sitting in my chair, pulling a red bookmark ribbon sloooowly across my lap desk, I watch as she pounces. I pull the ribbon through her claws, then let it ‘die.’ She prods and I pull it into life.<\/p>\n

From the sofa to the left, my dog watches the cat watch the ribbon. I watch both. And we do this for 10 minutes, as I make the ribbon snake across the desk, and the cat follows it.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes is interminable when you’re sitting. At least, it can be. It can go quickly, some days, like the quick pounce of the cat. But most days, it moves at snail speed. Far slower than the breaths I count.<\/p>\n

Sitting in a chair, w\/ all my attention centred on a cat’s sharp claws and the scarlet ribbon between them, time is as mutable as warm wax. It draws out almost infinitely, even a simple moment.<\/p>\n

The cat & I can play this game at length. Perhaps tomorrow, as I focus on my breath, I’ll pretend it is a scarlet ribbon. And my skittish mind a cat, watching ~<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why can’t I focus on my meditation like I focus to play with my cat? Sitting in my chair, pulling a red bookmark ribbon sloooowly across my lap desk, I watch as she pounces. I pull the ribbon through her claws, then let it ‘die.’ She prods and I pull it into life. From the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[459,256],"tags":[11,1187,262,1245],"class_list":["post-5328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cats","category-meditation","tag-beginners-heart","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-meditation"],"yoast_head":"\na cat, a ribbon, & meditation ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why can't I focus on my meditation like I focus to play with my cat? 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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