Society mired in entertainment and distraction. Cellphones glued to ears as listeners stumble around oblivious to all. Music blasting from cars (can there be anything more annoying than rap/hip hop?). So what is a mindful boy to do?

A little bit from Thich Nhat Hanh:

I remember a short conversation between the Buddha and a philosopher of his time.
"I have heard that Buddhism is a doctrine of enlightenment. What is your method? What do you practice every day?"
"We walk, we eat, we wash ourselves, we sit down."
"What is so special about that? Everyone walks, eats, washes, sits down . . ."
"Sir, when we walk, we are aware that we are walking; when we eat, we are aware that we are eating. . . . When others walk, eat, wash, or sit down, they are generally not aware of what they are doing."

In Buddhism, mindfulness is the key. Mindfulness is the energy that sheds light on all things and activities, producing the power of concentration, bringing forth deep insight and awakening. Mindfulness is at the base of all Buddhist practice."

Mindfulness needs, if not silence, then a reasonably quiet space for concentration. Our gadgets, our games, our blasters, our tweeters, and our televisions in every room, all build a wall between us and mindfulness. Alas, is there no going back?

Meditation is best understood as "...mental culture in the full sense of the term. It aims at cleansing the mind of impurities and disturbances, such as lustful desires, hatred, ill-will, indolence, worries and restlessness, skeptical doubts and cultivating such qualities as concentration, awareness, will, energy, the analytical faculty, confidence, joy, tranquility, leading finally to the attainment of highest wisdom which sees the nature of things as they are, and realizes the ultimate truth, Nirvana." from "What the Buddha Taught," by Walpola Rahula.

So there it is. If one wants to be serious about this thing, there is only the hard road of the practice of meditation. There is much else that passes for Buddhism in this world (prayers, prostrations, good deeds, the impulse to save "all sentient beings,") but this is the way. You must save yourself before you can save anyone else.

Of course a crank like myself would naturally love Edward Abbey. Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" is surely one of the great books of the 20th century. Abbey doesn't worship nature, but he knows that it is a place where man can be free. Humans become trapped by their possessions, goals and comfort. Nature, with its solitude and isolation, offers hope for whatever realization you may seek.

Abbey would certainly never identify himself as a Buddhist (or any other religion), but his work often revels in passages that show man as one with the universe. Such as:

"Looking out on this panorama of light, space, rock and silence I am inclined to congratulate the dead man on his choice of jumping-off place; he had good taste. He had good luck -- I envy him the manner of his going: to die alone, on rock under sun at the brink of the unknown, like a wolf, like a great bird, seems to me very good fortune indeed. To die in the open, under the sky, far from the insolent interference of leech and priest, before this desert vastness opening like a window onto eternity -- that surely was an overwhelming stroke of rare good luck."

Desert Solitaire, from the chapter "The Dead Man at Grandview Point"