When you are on retreat, restrictions are placed on your physical actions and speech. But there are also mental restraints and limitations. You are not to simply let your mind go wild or indulge in fantasies. Instead, you are to learn to bring the mind into the present.
Meditation Retreat
If Only He Were a Cat! by Diana St Ruth
What was interesting for me on this particular retreat was that I suddenly saw the very angry person who never seemed to get his own way, as a cat. ‘Funny,’ I thought one day, ‘If he were a cat, I wouldn’t take him so seriously.’