Maybe they are like fish stories. There was a Tass one in
the ‘70s that began with people’s edible shoes, like Birkenstocks,
mysteriously disappearing from outside their cabins.
Then, mystery solved, bobcat reveals its existence by jumping into the zendo from an open window, during shosan ceremony, walking slowly across the whole zendo, and jumping out the other side. I wasn’t there but I wouldn’t make that up, as far as I know. Fuzzy here, but maybe it ended like the story you posted or had to be trapped and driven far away before guest season. I could have heard that from Jane Hirshfield or was it Frank Killmer?
Then, mystery solved, bobcat reveals its existence by jumping into the zendo from an open window, during shosan ceremony, walking slowly across the whole zendo, and jumping out the other side. I wasn’t there but I wouldn’t make that up, as far as I know. Fuzzy here, but maybe it ended like the story you posted or had to be trapped and driven far away before guest season. I could have heard that from Jane Hirshfield or was it Frank Killmer?
Here’s
a Nevada City bobcat story that I can verify. A bobcat brazenly grabbed
one of Jenny’s chickens right in front of her and ran off. Jenny ran
after it, furiously following the trail of feathers. The trail seemed to
end but she saw a feather at the top of a high fence, scrambled over
and into a thorny overgrown gully. The feathers led all the way into the
bobcat’s lair where it was about to eat the chicken when Jenny burst
in. Wisely, it let Jenny have the chicken and retreated. When Jenny came
back out of the woods with the chicken I had to update my files on her
and I think the bobcat updated its files on humans. - M
This will go in Tassajara Stories
