Is meditation considered 'non-doing' if focus, choice, and will are required to lose oneself in an activity?

You said meditation is 'non-doing'. But to lose oneself in an activity, is it not required to focus, choose, will?

Kavido, if you focus, you will remain. If you choose, the chooser will be there. If you will, the ego cannot disappear. If you really want to get lost in any kind of activity you have to be a non-chooser, you have to drop your will. Your will simply means you don't trust God's will yet. Your will simply means you are still fighting, struggling, with God. Your will simply means you are trying to push the river, you are not ready to go with the river. Your will simply means you are trying to conquer something; you are violent, you are aggressive. To be lost in any activity -- it may be cleaning the floor or dancing or painting or loving; it may be anything -- to be lost in it, you have to drop your will. You have to simply be like a dead leaf in the wind,…

Meditation is always passive; the very essence of it is passive. It cannot be active because the very nature of it is non-doing. If you are doing something, your very doing disturbs the whole thing; your very doing, your very "activeness," creates the disturbance. Non-doing is meditation, but when I say non-doing is meditation I do not mean that you need not do anything. Even to achieve this non-doing, one has to do much. But this doing is not meditation. It is only a stepping stone, only a jumping board. All "doing" is just a jumping board, not meditation. You are just on the door, on the steps.... The door is non-doing, but to reach the non-doing state of mind one has to do much. But one should not confuse this doing with meditation. Life energy works in contradictions. Life exists as a dialectic: it is not a simple movement.

THE HUMAN MIND IS EFFORT-ORIENTED, action-oriented, obsessed with activity -- because the more active you are, the more your ego can be fulfilled, the more you can say 'I'. All activity is basically food for your egoistic personality. Meditation is not an effort, it is not an activity. Rather, it is a deep surrender. It is to be in nonactivity. Basically, just to be is meditation -- not doing anything, not desiring anything, not hankering to go somewhere; just being here and now, simply being here and now. That's what I call meditation. But it is very difficult to conceive. Even to contemplate it is difficult. The mind cannot conceive of anything that is not an effort. The very language of the mind, the very framework, the very structure, is based on effort: to do something, to achieve something, to go somewhere.

So first: now, when we sit for meditation—our entire language is the language of doing. We even say, We will do meditation. It is wrong to say, for there is no possibility of doing in meditation. But our entire language—human language—is the language of doing; we have no language for non-doing. In Japan, about a hundred and fifty years ago, there was a great monastery, a vast ashram. Some five hundred bhikshus practiced there. The emperor became eager to see it and went. The ashram spread far and wide in the forest; cottages were scattered. The head monk began to show them: In this cottage our monks cook; in this cottage they study; in this cottage they sing—here they do this, there they do that; here they bathe. In the middle stood a large building—the monk said nothing about it.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

THE WAY IS PERFECT LIKE VAST SPACE WHERE NOTHING IS LACKING AND NOTHING IS IN EXCESS. INDEED, IT IS DUE TO OUR CHOOSING TO ACCEPT OR REJECT THAT WE DO NOT SEE THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS. LIVE NEITHER IN THE ENTANGLEMENTS OF OUTER THINGS, NOR IN INNER FEELINGS OF EMPTINESS. BE SERENE WITHOUT STRIVING ACTIVITY IN THE ONENESS OF THINGS AND SUCH ERRONEOUS VIEWS WILL DISAPPEAR BY THEMSELVES. WHEN YOU TRY TO STOP ACTIVITY TO ACHIEVE PASSIVITY YOUR VERY EFFORT FILLS YOU WITH ACTIVITY. AS LONG AS YOU REMAIN IN ONE EXTREME OR THE OTHER YOU WILL NEVER KNOW ONENESS. THOSE WHO DO NOT LIVE IN THE SINGLE WAY FAIL IN BOTH ACTIVITY AND PASSIVITY, ASSERTION AND DENIAL. Logic will say something absolutely different. Logic will say, "Practice rest the whole day, so in the night you can rest beautifully." Mulla Nasruddin went to his doctor. Coughing, he entered.…