breathing while keeping my attention on the air going in and out of my body. being aware of my lungs filling and emptying and my rib cage expanding and contracting rhythmically. apparently, nothing difficult. yet i couldn't do it. my mind was bouncing from one thought to another, some details from a movie i had seen a couple of weeks earlier came back to mind. a moment later i was repeating the laws of thermodynamics as a mantra. i could think of everything but my breathing.
i had approached mindfulness meditation with curiosity and humility. i wanted to be able to observe the symptoms of what i considered to be panic attacks with a detached eye, and a discipline based on being aware of what goes on in the mind seemed the right choice.
so there I was, sitting cross-legged on the floor, trying to complete a series of at least ten conscious breaths. but it was impossible.
sitting before me, strutting and proud, there was my red cat.
one of the main principles of mindfulness meditation says that, during formal practice, it's necessary to maintain a nonjudgmental attitude. this means accepting peacefully your own failures. for me, another impossible feat. whenever i caught myself focusing on something else, i cursed myself and my inability. so after changing my position and closing my eyes i started again, determined to complete the task. the cat kept staring at me.
after the next unsuccessfull attempt, without even realizing it i focused my attention on the furry creature sitting in front of me and noticed some details of his attitude. he wasn't taking its gaze off me for a single moment while its ears scanned the environment like radars.
taking a short break from the practice, i realized what was going on: there was a creature actually meditating in that room, but it wasn't me, it was that red cat. he was in a state of total awareness. his eyes were focused on me, as i was the only moving thing around. his ears, and his sense of smell as well, kept him in a constant, though unfocused, state of environmental attention. his body was surrounded by a sphere of awareness that allowed him to know what was happening all around. of course, it would only take a slightly louder or closer noise to alert him and bring his attention on that detail.
i thought back to that scene for a long time. on one side of the room there was a hairless monkey sitting on the floor unsuccessfully trying to pay attention to his own breathing. less than two meters away, a majestic feline was effortlessly maintaining a very high level of awareness on the surroundings. anyone watching that scene would have had no doubt in deciding who among us was the superior being. i started having some doubts about the validity of mindfulness meditation, or at least about the methods i was using.
neither my cat nor any other animal would spend a minute of their life focusing on their breath, and i imagine that it was the same for our arboreal ancestors. yet all non-human animals, primates included, are capable of constantly keeping their attention on the present moment without getting carried away by an unstoppable stream of thoughts. as always, skills arise from needs. can you imagine a gazelle in the savannah focusing on her breath? of course not, yet her brain is constantly tuned to the "here and now" because she cannot afford to ignore the presence of a predator approaching threateningly. the same focus is required by the lion, as she has to approach the gazelle in total silence and staying downwind. honestly, i cannot imagine better examples of mindfulness meditation applied to daily life.
this happened many years ago, and nowadays i can say that my interest in sensorial rewilding started in that moment. i had already read Theodore Kaczynski's "industrial society and its future" so i was no new to certain issues, but without the contribution of a red cat called Bignè i wouldn't be where i am today.
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