Watching the Rain

The monk had once believed that enlightenment lived somewhere beyond the mountains.

He had spent years searching for it—in scriptures, in silence, in long hours of meditation beneath ancient trees. He had climbed inward as far as he knew how to climb, yet peace always seemed to remain one step beyond his reach.

Then the little white cat arrived.

No one knew where it had come from.

One morning it simply appeared beneath the temple eaves, wet from the rain and entirely unconcerned with the affairs of the world.

The monk offered it a bowl of milk.

The cat stayed.

Days became weeks, and weeks became seasons.

Eventually, the cat began following him everywhere.

When the monk walked through the garden, the cat walked behind him.

When he swept the temple floor, the cat watched the broom with great seriousness.

When he meditated, the cat curled beside him and fell asleep.

The monk began to suspect that the cat was teaching him.

Not through words.

Cats have little use for words.

One rainy afternoon, the monk and the cat sat together beneath the temple veranda, looking out upon the garden.

Rain fell steadily from the darkened sky.

It gathered upon the lotus leaves, ran down moss-covered stones, and formed tiny rivers along the winding paths.

The monk watched the rain.

The cat watched the rain.

Neither spoke.

After a while the monk said, "I have spent my whole life trying to understand peace."

The cat blinked.

A drop of rain struck a leaf.

The leaf bowed beneath its weight, then slowly lifted again.

The monk sighed.

"I search for harmony, yet I cannot seem to find it."

The cat stretched, turned in a slow circle, and settled comfortably against the monk's robe.

The monk smiled.

Perhaps the cat understood something he did not.

It never searched for peace.

It simply rested when tired.

It ate when hungry.

It watched when curious.

It slept when sleepy.

It wandered when it wished to wander.

It never worried about whether it was enlightened.

The monk looked again at the garden.

The rain was not trying to become sunlight.

The pond was not trying to become a river.

The lotus was not trying to become anything other than a lotus.

And the cat?

The cat was perfectly content being a cat.

The monk laughed softly.

For years he had been trying to escape the present moment in order to find enlightenment somewhere ahead of him.

Yet his small companion had been living there all along.

The rain continued to fall.

The garden glistened.

The cat closed its eyes.

The monk closed his.

For a while there was no teacher and no student.

Only rain.

Only breath.

Only the quiet companionship of two beings sitting together while the world continued becoming exactly what it was.

And when the rain finally stopped, neither of them moved.

There was nowhere else to be.

Nothing else to seek.

The cat had already found peace.

The monk, at last, was beginning to understand.