A Sad Day today...Cat gone missing.

Attachment to someone or something, some habits or some believe system is what holds one to this state of being deluded and the major cause of suffering. This morning my cat is missing, I let her outside the door of the apartment as usual to let some space to run about which i have done before and this time she failed to return. I have grown attached to her no doubt and if she goes missing my daughter who is about to return in a day or two will not forgive me to say the least. I had brought her back from Belantik where i go for my retreat at the organic farm, it was a gift from a friend there. I really had no desire to own a cat,never did, but i thought my daughter could use a companion as she loves cats and so I was willing to make the sacrifice of  raising this one knowing that this is what i was asking for. I knew i would be the one to care for her most of the time and have thus far proven right,emptying her litter my freedom to move about at my will is curtailed due to her presence and not mention feeding and cleaning up her litter. Most of all having to entertain her which can be irritating sometimes, no I am not a cat lover. However where cats are concern, Ferbie is a pretty cat with three distinct colors, like black white and orange and a short bushy tail like a rabbit's and she is smart and sensitive. She also has pointy ears like a wild cat, perhaps she is partly a wild cat.

Attachment, especially to a human or even an animal is one of the most painful feeling to experience when they are gone or when you have to let them go. And so the Buddha had warned against being attached to corporeal objects and even to life itself. Being human I feel we live in a self made bondage from the day we are able to acquire from the external world what we need and what we don't and grow attach to and ends up clinging on to what we got while asking and looking for more. Desire is primarily, the cause of suffering according to the Buddha and the greater our desire the more intense our suffering or so it seems. It is in letting go of desire that we find the salvation from suffering, it is in knowing when to say enough is enough, when to accept that greed is an illness and the cause of human bondage to this Mayavic existence that we can free ourselves from the life of suffering. 

I will undoubtedly miss the cat if she decides not to return but that is not going to a long term baggage that i will dwell upon even if I have grown attached to her. She will be missed especially by my daughter and my son, but thy too will have to accept the loss in time. Perhaps it is a lesson to be learned that part of suffering is the impermanent nature of all desires, nothing last forever. As you look into the mirror you see that your features are changing, your hair turning white and your teeth are missing one by one, this is in essence the suffering of impermanence and one has to learn to accept the inevitable; all that lives will one day die is the law of nature and none escapes from this. 

If life is suffering, why bother? Why worry too much about what can or cannot be done to alleviate suffering, just live. Make the best out of what is a day at a time and learn to be frugal with choices, being extreme is never good for the health. One can only take one breath at a time and so no point in hyperventilating over matters that is beyond one's control. Roll with the punch and go with the flow as the saying goes and  sit and watch the grass grow.