The Monk Who Tried to Out-Meditate His Cat
He sat cross-legged for 10 hours. The cat blinked once and won.
There once was a monk named Dorian who took enlightenment personally.
He didn’t just want peace. He wanted to win peace.
When the bell rang at dawn, he didn’t just meditate—he strategized his stillness.
Back straight. Mind calm. Breath slower than a glacier.
Somewhere, in the dim corridors of his ego, he whispered,
“I will become the most unmoved being in this monastery.”
And then—like every good spiritual downfall—along came a cat.
Not a majestic tiger, not even a sleek temple guardian.
Just a chubby orange creature named Noodle,
whose main spiritual practice was napping in inconvenient places.
The monk saw Noodle sprawled on a sun-warmed rock,
blissfully oblivious to enlightenment,
and felt that ancient competitive itch bubble up from his lower chakras.
“Ah,” he thought, “the perfect adversary.”
He sat cross-legged beside the cat and vowed not to move until the feline twitched first.
Hours passed. The sun arced. The bell tolled.
Noodle didn’t so much as flinch.
Dorian’s leg went numb. His mind hallucinated soup.
He tried to remember if the Buddha ever mentioned sciatica in the Pali Canon.
After ten hours, the cat blinked once—slowly, smugly—
and wandered off to lick its butt, victorious.
Dorian remained, a statue of misplaced devotion.
Finally, a voice in his head whispered:
“You’re not meditating. You’re trying to win.”
He laughed so hard his mala beads snapped.
Noodle yawned. The cosmos purred.
Lesson: Stop competing with beings who don’t even know there’s a contest.
The truly enlightened aren’t keeping score—they’re just basking in the sun.
Blessed be the ones who lose on purpose,
for they’ve already stopped playing the wrong game.
Keep the Scrolls Unrolling
The Virgin Monk Boy Scrolls is a free publication.
If these words steady you, challenge you, make you laugh, or help you breathe deeper, here are three simple ways to support the work.
Share the Scrolls
Passing a link forward is how more wandering souls stumble into the monastery. Word of mouth is the whole engine.
Become a Supporting Member
Paid members unlock the Virgin Monk Boy Book Of Hours, Whispers from the Silence, and the ability to start threads and share their own Substacks in the private chat.
Tip with a coffee
A one time gift of holy caffeine that fuels both the monk and the Magdalene movement. ☕🔥
Your presence alone already helps.
Your support keeps the lantern lit for everyone else.
Virgin Monk Boy on Bluesky @virginmonkboy.bsky.social
Virgin Monk Boy on Twitter @VirginMonkBoy
Virgin Monk Boy on Instagram @VirginMonkBoy
Virgin Monk Boy on Threads @VirginMonkBoy
Ah, cats, sent to teach us presence but with a sideline in rodent control. Doubly useful unless practicing presence by sleeping on clean bed linen
Beneath your humor, there’s a quiet precision. It’s a perfect satire of spiritual ambition: how ego sneaks in even through the back door of enlightenment. And yet, it ends not in laughter: the sound of wisdom remembering it doesn’t have to be solemn.
Sometimes, the deepest lesson really is this: the universe blinks, stretches, and wanders off, and that’s enough.