Mindful about Meditation

Lots references recently to Dalai Lama, ideas of using meditation techniques, now called "mindfulness", for gaining or keeping body, mind, spiritual, emotional, health. Just now  I remember a quote from a Zen teacher years ago that when meditating, "we should not meditate "for" something" that being a self defeating exercise. We should simply meditate and accept what comes, or doesn't. Like breathing, we breathe for itself, right now. Personally, I often get caught in the need to act towards something. Makes meditating,  being mindful, difficult. I resolve this somewhat by just stopping now and then whatever I'm doing, and just gaze at the scene, empty mind, empty hands, for a moment. Things seem to become still around me, as in a painting in a gallery. For that moment,  I lose my sense of myself. On the Red Road, I feel myself doing my smudge, my Pipe, in that same way, stepping into sacred space. My son Michael when in Grade 1 age 6 used often to slip into a way of daydreaming. This annoyed his teacher who determined he was being deliberately lazy and disrespectful. She bruised his soul somewhat before we got him out of there, and with a kind and loving teacher who gave him the respect he needed and deserved.

So when to meditate, when to act? To be, or not to be, that is the question...

for my poetry web site, lots of words and photos to meditate up on   go to  http://www.donatopoetry.com