The Cat

[The] defilements are like a cat. If you feed it, it will keep coming around. Stop feeding it, and eventually it will not bother to come around anymore.
Ajah Chah; Still Forest Pool

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It is an easy enough thing to say I will stop feeding the cat but actually doing it is the hard part. My character defects are tricky... as attractive and hard to deny as a cat at the door; meowing, pleading, insisting that I feed them. I can ignore them but simply applying discipline and effort to do so takes more determination than I am capable of if I just sit around and think about them hoping for some sort of magical relief. I am one of those people who have had to take positive action to otherwise rid myself of their encumbrances. In most cases this involves reaching out to be of use to another human being. Whether it is taking the hand of another to offer whatever help I can give or it involves sitting and listening to a master, guru or preacher, I am taking positive action. Without even thinking of the cat (or hungry panther), my defects gradually fall away; sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
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