Happy Caturday: so many black stray cats at Yannawa temple.

I was always anxious about these stray cats at Yannawa temple whenever I had to be away for several days. I didn’t know whether the crazy woman, who used to drown many cats in the river, would be back to harm these cats. I just hoped that the skinny monk would be keeping an eye on these cats. We didn’t see her at the temple for three weeks, I hoped she had returned to her home in the south for good.

There used to be almost fifteen cats in the car park at the temple. Nowadays about five cats were around, and these were mostly black cats. There were also five black cats by the waterfront. It might be that these black cats were so smart that they escaped the crazy women’s food poisoning and torture. These black cats had become very jumpy with unfamiliar people trying to get near them. They didn’t trust people like they used to in the past. Only the young kittens would be running towards me as he was very hungry and wanted his food badly.

The two ladies who used to feed these cats living near the waterfront had disappeared altogether. Most visitors to the temple didn’t think about stray cats so they just fed the fish at the pier, the temple sold pellet food for fish. I had not seen a single monk or novice feeding stray cats with leftover food. This was very disappointing to me and made me harbour negative thoughts. Monks should be kind and compassionate to all living beings especially those in hunger and suffering from illness. That’s why I regarded most monks like invisible beings.

The young man who sold live fish from the market to visitors fed these black cats from time to time. These live fish would be bought by visitors so they they could be set free in the river. These people believed that this action would bring them good karma. I doubted that they would gain substantially good karma as it seemed too easy to me. People just use money to buy instant good karma without any sympathetic feeling for these fish or compassion for the fish. There’s no spiritual thoughts behind the action; so they could probably get ten percent of their investment for good karmic results.

I shouldn’t be too harsh to these superficial people on instant good karma. I ought to practice more loving kindness. I was angry as they met poor cats going hungry when they could afford to buy good karma. The monks should have been good examples of practicing living kindness and generosity so that laypeople would learn to be more sensitive to other living creatures on earth. The temple could easily set up a fund to look after stray cats; lots of people would donate to this fund. The money could be used for buying cat food, paying vet bills and neutering of stray cats. But no one had that kind of imagination.

Some cats had become very trusting towards me and became my friends. Some cats actually talked to me in cat language. They were very happy to see me, their emotions were so clear on their faces. The younger vendor of live fish told me that one black cat has a big wound on his back. I couldn’t believe the size of the open wound. I wondered how he got this big wound, the young vendor told me he was in a fight with another cat.

But I thought that was a wound from sharp object or a car accident. If it was a fight, he would have more wounds on his face and body. His wound looked very big and deep when he was walking. I was glad he didn’t feel any pain. I was shock to see the layers of his flesh and fat which reminded me of seeing meat in a butcher shop years ago. I tried to hide medicine in his food and crushed the pill into powder so I could put it on his wound. I did this for two weeks and his wound seemed to be smaller, I was very relieved he didn’t get any infection. That was the first time I had to put my finger on his wound to administer the medicine, he just allowed me to do as I pleased.

Life is full of uncertainty and unexpected changes. So I have no idea how long I would be able to feed these stray cats. Once I heard that a monk tried to persuade the abbot to prevent me from feeding these cats. Luckily, the skinny monk defended me in that meeting. It would have caused quite an uproar as I was willing to fight back and made the whole thing public knowledge. Cat lovers would become very angry and the temple would get bad publicity. Fortunately the abbot was too smart to believe the bad monk’s report. I hope that I could continue to feed these stray cats for a long time.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.