Why do you stay in prison / when the door is so wide open. - Rumi, 13th century Persian poet

Why meditate, you ask?

 Some old Chinese Zen teacher said that “meditation is good for nothing.” The way I understand that strange statement is that there’s no goal in meditation, no happy outcome, nothing to gain by sitting still. If we try to meditate with the expectation of some beneficial outcome, we are apt to be disappointed. If, of instance, I hope to “be more relaxed” and find that after meditation I’m as tense (or more) than when I began, then meditating will be short-lived. Why do something that brings discomfort or, in Buddhist terms, causes me to suffer? There’s enough of that in the world. Suffering occurs whenever wishful thinking collides with they way things are.

 The purpose of Zen meditation, as best as I can figure it after ten years of sitting, is to sit still for 10 or more minutes every day, is to observe what is. Whatever thoughts, feelings, memories, aches, or stories come up … gently welcome them. Notice what arises. And let it be. Don’t push it away, wish it away, lament the busyness of your mind.

 The key to meditation – in fact its sole purpose – is not to feed all this activity with fresh energy. Every time the story-telling mind or an itchy elbow draws attention to itself, (1) notice it and (2) bring your attention to the breath. Notice the in-breath and the out-breath. Each breath is in real time, each one fresh and unspoilt, each one filled with new life. For that brief moment, you’re full awake ... a Buddha.