Happy Caturday: feeding stray cats twice a week at the temple.

As soon as I have recovered from my long train journey, I would prepare wet food sachets and biscuits for feeding stray cats at Yannawa temple by the river. I bc would arrive at the temple in late afternoon to avoid the heat in the car park. These days only four cats were living in the cat park. More than ten cats had disappeared during the past year. This really hit me about the impermanence of life and changes through time. Still I couldn’t help feeling sad and I missed my favourite cats. I had to pull myself together and told myself not to become too sentimental.

If I hadn’t read any Buddhist teachings, my emotions would rule over my sensibility. My life would be at the mercy of changing emotional stimulations and memories. These temple cats lived in the present without any emotional baggage. They would be complaining about being very hungry during the last two days as no one else came to feed them. So, I knew i had to give them extra wet food to comfort them. Once they had eaten enough, they just walked away to either lay down or groom themselves.

These cats acted very logically and rationally without complicated emotions. They didn’t feel that they owed me anything and they didn’t need to return me any favour. It was my duty to feed hungry cats as a good and sensible person should do for poor hungry cats. Privileged people should be kind to underprivileged cats and living beings. In fact I should thank them for giving me a chance to feed them and to accumulate good karma.

Some stray cats wod become fond of me and accepted me into their circle as my manners were up to their standards of gentleness and refined culture. I had passed their quality control for being acceptable and friendly. Still, some cats put me on further probation. They wod allow me to touch them when I had passed all the tests. I was thinking of bribing some cats with mote wet food so that nice words would be put forwards on my behalf. But they could read my mind and told me to quit my plan.

The three remaining cats near the temple pier would rush to see me as soon as they saw my car. Tammy, the black and white cat, should be about five or six years old. She was very quiet and timid, she would eagerly eat the dry biscuits. This told me that she was starving. The young black cat, Little Tiger, would wait for me to mix some wet food in the dish. Little Tiger was still very small and skinny, though he was quite a big eater. The newcomer, Yellow, the old ginger cat, was very choosy about his food. He demanded for having more helpings of wet food, otherwise he would refuse to eat!

These temple cats had their own habits and unique personalities. They had learned from their tough experiences about survival in the temple. They knew how to find hiding places and to run away from dogs as soon as they were spotted. Some inconsiderate visitors liked to bring their noisy dogs to ‘pooh’ in temple ground. These cats did allow me to touch them but they didn’t think of me as their close friend. They wanted me to feed them everyday, then I would pass their test.

I wish I could afford the time and resources to be able to feed all temple cats everyday. I had only two friends who donated money for buying cat food. Sometimes I had to donate some of my cat food to the skinny monk. His sister, who married an American, could no afford to send him money to buy cat food. The economic situation in America’s rather bad. The sister and her husband still couldn’t sell their house. They planned to move to Thailand soon. So, the skinny monk was in tight financial situation. I had to cheer him up with some cat food. It came as a relief to him whenever I arrived to feed his cats and kittens.

Time seemed to become tougher for survival these days. Prices of cat food had gone up and a few visitors who used to feed temple cat had gone missing. I hoped they were healthy and alright. The changing weather had made people came down with cold and flu. Those people who had covid jabs appeared to suffer badly from seasonal cold. Their reduced immunity couldn’t cope with a common cold. My neighbour came down with a very bad cold even though she had the new flu jab. My old friend had been coughing for two weeks and lost her voice. So those visitors might also suffer from cold this month. There seemed to be a pandemic of common cold in every city this month. I wondered whether it was part due to Chemtrails.

Luckily we didn’t have the dense fog which had been a byproduct of some extra loads in Chemtrails which occured in several places in America. People found bacteria and parasites in the strange fog over there. Here we had overwhelming dense distribution of aluminum and other heavy metals as standard payloads. I just wished all the pilots would come down with severe cold and couldn’t fly their Chemtrails planes for the whole month. Perhaps some cats wouldn’t get cat flu so often. Several cats had perished because of bad flu during the last few months. I should sprinkle some medicine in all the food next time.

As the winter month has almost ended, the sunset looked much more colourful by the river. When I had extra time, I would walk around the temple pier to observe the sunset and took some photos. This seemed to be a city of contrasts and contradictions. The river was always busy with various boats and activities. Life continued according to the flow of tide and time. More changes would occur whether we were ready for them or not. Whatever would happen in the future, I hope that I could continue to feed these temple cats as often as I could.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.