Picking the flowers from the tree in my grandmother's front yard has got to be one of the simplest meditative tasks I have done in recent years.

If a flower is picked with too much force, the stem of the flower does not detach itself from its originating branch, causing a bit of the branch to be removed along with the flower. This trauma to the branch causes white sticky sap to leak from its injury. If a flower is plucked too close to its blossom, the stem snaps in the middle, leaving the bottom half of the stem sitting in the socket. Each flower must be removed from its originating branch with just the right pressure from just the right fingertips, at just the right points.

Once this becomes learned, the focus applied to this task transitions from sharp to slightly blurred, allowing the mind to slip into a meditative state.