Web 2.0, the social web (or whatever you prefer to call it) is real!

A great elderly Japanese Zen master (let’s call him Makoto) owned a cat that was the love of his life and was by his side always, including during meditation classes. When the Zen master died, his disciples decided to keep the cat because they were so used to it. When the cat died, the current master and the monks agreed to buy another cat because they were so used to having a cat in the temple. Other monasteries found this intriguing and concluded that the greatness of Makoto’s monastery came from some mysterious powers or effects from the cat. And so monasteries all over the region began introducing cats in their meditation classes. This practice went on for generations and even led to the publication of theses and treatises on the importance of the cat in increasing human concentration and eliminating negative energy. It took one century and a master who was allergic to cat hair for the first temple to refuse a cat in the monastery. When nothing happened to the master and the monastery apart from continuous progress in their meditations, other monasteries also began withdrawing cats — in the process saving money from feeding so many cats! Within a few decades, new theses and treatises appeared highlighting the power of the human mind and the importance of meditation without the aid of animals. Within a century, the cat vanished entirely from the Zen meditation in that region. But it took two hundred years for this behavioral circle to run its course.