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Sunday, March 23, 2003
Estremera: The ritual cat and the siopao
By Stelle Estremera
THE war in Iraq, the challenges that found its way crashing through my peaceful existence after that fateful March 4 explosion, the Araw ng Dabaw and just about everything that could go wrong, the uncertainty of the times my nerves were not just frayed, they have apparently developed their own minds such that they no longer listen to my inner urgings for them to settle down matched with deep inhale and exhale exercises...
In times like these, there is nothing more soothing than reading up on simple words of wisdom that somehow help put things in perspective.
Indeed, the times are so complicated, we have even raise our level of distrust not just by putting locks on our doors to keep robbers and other ill-intentioned individuals away, we even willingly subject ourselves to inspection wherever we go because it's the only way we can feel safe in the world we move around in.
A long time ago, in my younger years, I would feel irritated when somebody looks through my bag. Now just about every stick-wielding security guard in every place has gone through every bag and package I have carried, I even open them for all to see. But then, a long time ago in my younger years people only blow up other people who are their identified enemies. Now, being at the wrong place and the wrong time will just send you knocking on heaven's doors in a split second. Match this with the non-stop news coverage about the war in Iraq, I simply needed some peace... never mind if it's all just within me.
And so, there I was, alone in a hotel room, reading up and trying to drown the sounds from the television that continued to flash reports and updates about the war in Iraq, leafing through some soothing stories to ponder on and finding some peace that was otherwise no longer around me.
Story No. 1: When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them. So the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and tied up. Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice.
It's funny how a lot of things we do in the world we have created worked its way through our general consciousness and becomes part of our psyche.
It was just a pesky cat that distracted monks in their meditation in this Zen story. But the pesky tied-up cat became a necessary requisite to the ritual of meditation. The specific cat's peskiness was soon forgotten and what was left was the act of tying a cat before meditation. Thus, long after the pesky cat has died, the meditation just couldn't go on without a cat, whether pesky or not, being tied up.
All this is but a story, all right. But it speaks about the world mankind has created, the world we live in today and continue to re-create. And so we have stuff like feng shui, we count stairs according to oro-plata-mata, believing in their mysticism, rarely questioning where all these came from. And so we go on, like the monks in this Zen story, tying up cats in order to meditate, figuring out how a bagua works, and fearing the stairs that stops at mata.
Story No. 2: A martial arts student went to his teacher and said earnestly, "I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it." The teacher's reply was casual, "Ten years." Impatiently, the student answered, "But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?" The teacher thought for a moment, "20 years."
If you don't get it, then I give you 30 more years...
As I pondered on more short stories, a series of messages from a friend, whom I poured my trepidations out to earlier in the day, came in.
"Power and control is all about time, matter, and space. Manipulate the three and you have power and control," he said.
"There are a thousand ways to skin a cat," he continued. "You can be a siopao or a biological experiment. Kung tumambay ka ng Cubao at 10 p.m. siopao ka. Kung tambay ka ng Diliman during finals, then bio experiment ka. Ano ba talaga ang gusto mo?"
"Ang siopao masarap, pero hindi ka na makikilala, you will look like all other siopaos. Kung bio experiment, mahirap, pero learning experience."
Several years from now, if I sound wiser, just remember that I learned it from the ritual cat, the martial arts master, and the siopao. Yes, life can really be very simple if we only take time to strip it of the complexities we have coated it with.
(March 23, 2003 issue)
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