The Answers You have been Searching For!

 And how only you can find them...

Mindless meditators and mindful chickens

The sun rises in the north of Thailand to a corus of circarder chirps and roster calls. The morning meditation over, I slowly stretch my stiff legs and hobble over to get a broom. Morning chores have begun. Trying to be present with every motion I walk over to the meditation park to start sweeping.
Yesterdays perfect piles of leaves are scattered everywhere. I mutter, then I sweep. Attempting to be aware of every action and sensation; I sweep. Finally, before me nature has been tamed and my job is done.

Before the hour is out; they come. The chickens. Having these lovely piles of leaves makes for great scratching and that they do. Methodically they go around spreading the piles around. Fully present as they do so.

Mindful chickens appreciating freshly swept leaf piles...

It was during the next meditation, while plotting ingenious anti-chicken devices that the realization came:
Sweeping was not about getting a job done. In fact it proberly would never be fully complete. It was about being present for the task at hand. In the west we have such a focus on the outcome that often we forget that the process of getting there can be so much more important.

Which is why I guess they love sweeping so much at buddist temples (wats). And guess what job I had at the next Wat: sweeping bat droppings from a cave :-)

May you and all beings be free from suffering and find peace.