The Timeless Teachings of Guru Zuzu

If you live with a cat (and let’s be clear, you are living with your cat, not the other way around) you may also be living with a guru. You may have noticed “your” cat’s smarts, the way she knows exactly when it is four a.m. and thus time to apply her right paw to your lower lip. Or her instincts in sensing, hours before the vet appointment, that it’s time to blend imperceptibly in with the dust bunnies under your bed. But did you know that the snoozing bundle of fur on your sofa is also, most likely, a spiritual teacher worthy of reverence and devotion? A saying celebrated in the teachings of Lao Tzu and Zen Buddhism promises that “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Author Tony Broadbent experienced this when a cat, subsequently named Zuzu — named after “Zuzu’s Petals” in the film, It’s a Wonderful Life — showed up in his life. In tribute he has created a series of delightful spreads — nuggets of wit and wisdom on the left, image on the right. So get ready for your own visitation. If you share a domicile with a cat, you don’t have to climb a mountaintop, go to an ashram, or learn a new way to breathe. You already have all you need.

Tony Broadbent is the author of mysteries including The Smoke, about a Cockney cat (yes, cat) burglar in post-war London and The Beatles in Liverpool, Hamburg, London. Broadbent lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.