Allergic to Mindfulness

My sweetie has been taking a spoonful of local bee pollen since March in an effort to mow down his summer allergies. So far, it's working. He doesn't really like the taste of the bee pollen, which he chases with a glass of fruit juice.

I have to confess that for many years, decades even, i was allergic to mindfulness. On the one hand i could see that it was good medicine for the ills of daily life, but as long as i was feeling good, mindfulness seemed, well, SO boring.

Besides, i loved the way my mind worked. My particular mind is very good at problem-solving, and its form of creativity gives insights into how people and the world work. Oh! How i love that playground. Why rein the mind in to the narrow constriction of mindfulness?

Now i see that i was chafing against the subject-object duality of noting practice. If hearing was happening, there must be a hearer. If walking was happening, the walker should notice walking. (Yawn.)

Letting the mind run loose was so much more fun and interesting than keeping it fenced in with boring old mindfulness.

Then a teacher introduced me to contemplations, and my meditation practice bloomed. Contemplations interest my mind, but the way to get to them is to walk down the path of mindfulness. Now i begin to intuit the non-duality that lies behind this facade of mindfulness--the key i need to open the gate to the secret garden.