Impurrmanence: Lessons on Non-Attachment I Learned from My Cat

By Nik Havert

Nik Havert had long been a martial arts student and instructor, but didn't meet his first Zen instructor until his cat, Rama, revealed himself to be one as he slowly lost his life to a rare form of feline bladder cancer. Havert began chronically two journeys - his cat's path to a different existence and Havert's path to a life without his beloved cat. Havert learned about attachment, non-attachment, presence, death, life, and Zen from a feline master, lessons that would help him for the rest of his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nik Havert
• Release date: Nov 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005129149

Nik Havert

I'm a writer, hard worker, and Renaissance man who sometimes goes by the name of Nicole Wolfe, and other times as Victor Von Psychotron. I've been writing and self-publishing comic books since 2004 and have had many short stories published in erotica anthologies. I love writing multiple genres and have also ghostwritten travel guides and short stories.I also love films and am a horror host (weird-o-rama.com) who thinks Mario Bava is the Roman god of color. I DJ for the University of Notre Dame's college rock show on WSND (wsnd.nd.edu) and am the owner and writer of a music blog - 7th Level Music - which covers everything from psychedelic rock to hip hop (7thlevelmusic.com). I'm also a horror host on YouTube and local public access TV. My show, Weird-O-Rama, has been running for almost a decade (weird-o-rama.com).

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Impurrmanence: Lessons on Non-Attachment I Learned from My Cat

By Nik Havert

Copyright 2022 Nik Havert

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - For when the disciple is ready…

Chapter 2 - For I was hungry and you gave me food…

Chapter 3 - Zen is…

Chapter 4 - All fears and all infinite sufferings…

Chapter 5 - I have realized…

Chapter 6 - Truth hits everybody…

Chapter 7 - It is almost certain…

Chapter 8 - To be free from suffering…

Chapter 9 - When making your choice in life…

Chapter 10 - If there are questions…

Chapter 11 - Just think of the trees…

Chapter 12 - To prepare the future…

Chapter 13 - In dealing with those who are undergoing great suffering…

Chapter 14 - Death is…

Chapter 15 - Let go…

Chapter 16 - Do not think…

Chapter 17 - Our God, after the storms…

Chapter 18 - All I can be…

Chapter 19 - It’s gonna work out…

Chapter 20 - If you wish to drown…

Chapter 21 - Both speech and silence…

Chapter 22 - It is not impermanence that makes us suffer…

Chapter 23 - To what shall I compare this life of ours…

Chapter 24 - So then you are no longer strangers…

Chapter 25 - One way or the other…

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"For when the disciple is ready the Master is ready also." - Mabel Collins

We adopted Rama in the late summer of 2010. Our former cat, Ivory, lived a long life of nineteen years, but we had her euthanized when it became evident she could no longer walk, jump, or play and her appetite diminished to almost nothing.

We knew we’d eventually get another cat. We just didn’t know when it would happen. My philosophy was The right cat will come along at the right time. Mandy found Ivory at a friend’s farm back in the early 1990’s. She was a small cat and one of her favorite things to do as a kitten was to sit on our shoulders. We could stand next to each other and she’d walk across our shoulders, sometimes three or four people-wide.

Ivory had been with us for almost two decades. She had been our college cat. She was there when I graduated from Ball State, when I lived like a hermit in an apartment in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana, when we got engaged and later married, when Mandy got her first job at the University of Notre Dame, when we bought our house, when Mandy and I bought our first dog, a black Labrador named Cleopatra Cleo Jones, together, and all the way up until April 2010.

Ivory didn’t talk much until she got older. When she started, she mainly talked to tell us she was hungry or that birds were outside the living room’s east window. One night she woke us with loud meowing, louder than we’d ever heard her cry. I ran downstairs, figuring she was hurt. I found her sitting in our dining room and staring at a corner of our dining room. She looked up at me, seemingly unconcerned. We couldn’t help but wonder if she might’ve been seeing some sort of apparition in the dining room.

The cries happened every now and then and eventually it got to the point that we thought perhaps she was lonely in the dark or forgetting where we were, although she knew where our bed was upstairs. She was almost twenty years old, after all, which is an esteemed age for a cat. We would call to her from bed, and she’d wander up there and see us and usually decide to sleep at our feet and seemingly take up half the bed despite her size.

We didn’t know it then, but she was crying because cancer was growing in her bones. Eventually she lost the use of one back leg, and then the other. She had become old and thin, and I was worried she was going to fall down the basement stairs on the way to her litter box while we were gone for a day or two, break a hip or leg, and die alone at the bottom of those same stairs.

The call to have her euthanized was the right call, but it was still rough on us. She’d been part of our lives for almost two decades. She had a great long life, and letting go of her and it seemed bizarre, almost like purposely cutting off a digit.

Rama had belonged to the mother of our friend, Connie. Connie and her husband (and a retired co-worker of mine at the local police department), Tim, were Ivory’s frequent cat-sitters when we’d go on vacation. They cared almost as much for her as we did. They knew we were missing her. Connie thought we might like another cat and asked if we’d like her mother’s since she wasn’t allowed to have it at her condo complex. Mandy suspected that Connie had brought Rama (or Snickers as he was known then) home for herself, but Tim nixed the idea of having a cat and two dogs, so she took Snickers to live with her mother. The apartment complex shot down that idea, so he would soon be homeless. I was a bit reluctant to go and see him, as I wasn’t sure I was ready for a new cat after not even a year had passed since Ivory moved onto the next world. I was also hesitant because I figured I was going to bring him home whether I liked him or not, even if it were just to keep him a short time until I could find a permanent home for him so he wouldn’t have to go to a shelter. I wasn’t sure I was ready for something as emotional as taking care of a kitten only to let him go live with