Hello, I am Schrödinger, and this is my box. It contains a cat, and also some slow acting poison, or slow fuse bomb, or something like that. The cat might be dead or alive, I really don't know. I have equanimity about that. It could be male or female, who knows?! At the moment, due to my non-attachment to the animal, I can conjure and entertain parallel and opposite myth sets. The cat could be alive, it could be happy, I could be a fantastic pet-owner and relish the thought of stroking its fuzzy ears. Or, it could be dead, flea-ridden, a rabid pest which I captured in my back garden, ensuring the continued survival of an entire season of frogs. Currently I am indetermined, floating, free, able to choose my identity and the nature of the world around me in the Endless Now. 

Of course, I could open this old shoebox and look. But that would mean allowing a desirous attachment to take hold of me, a cherishing of the eventual outcome, and a wish to have certainty about my relationship to this feline, and thus own and possess it.  Luckily, I am a Buddhist Master and therefore entirely equanimous. It's possible that my feelings about the little tiger are unfriendly, that the delusion of hatred moved me to imprison the thing together with substances which generally induce death after some given time interval. That might be one supposition. But if the delusion of hatred has some hold on me, I shall choose to selectively ignore it, to withhold from it the inappropriate attention it craves in order to thrive. I'm just not going to think about it! And if this cat is the object which gives rise to that delusion, for the moment I think I'll invest in dogs. Or budgies. Maybe later when I have a grip on my scientific experiments, I'll see if I can approach the box and entertain the notion of lifting the lid, all the while observing the minds which arise to see if they are minds which give rise to happiness, harmony and general state of loveliness. Or not. 

[Editorial note: at this point I would embed a jpg of Schrodinger's cat in a box. But some things prevent me: (1) I don't know how to embed stuff in LJ; (2) I can't be bothered to browse for suitable cartoons; (3) I am far too equanimous having been to meditation class. Sorry. ]
 

Tags: buddha, schrödinger