20:16

Doing Nothing

by Inward Bound Mindfulness

Rated
4.7
Type
guided
Activity
Meditation
Suitable for
Everyone
Plays
8.8k

This practice celebrates the beautiful practice of doing nothing! Calm present awareness without grasping or pushing away. Guided by teacher Sara Shapouri.

Doing NothingCalmAwarenessGroundingBody AwarenessSound AwarenessMind WanderingBreathing Awareness

Transcript

So getting in comfortable position,

Upright and relaxed.

And again,

Letting your eyes close.

Looking down on the ground.

And let's take a couple deep breaths.

Breathing in to invite some energy,

Especially for some of us it's late in the day.

And breathing out inviting relaxation.

And with each out breath,

Seeing if you can let go into the earth.

Releasing,

Softening muscles.

Letting gravity hold you.

And resting our attention with the contact with the earth,

With our seat,

With the floor.

Relaxing and getting grounded.

Letting our attention sink deep into our bodies.

Noticing the pressure,

Maybe temperature.

The experience of sitting,

What's it like for you right now?

Now I invite you to bring your attention to sound,

To hearing.

Noticing any silence,

Sounds coming and going.

And again inviting yourself to relax,

You don't have to try to hear anything.

You don't need to make the sounds go away,

Just come and go in their own time.

So resting with sound.

Relaxing and getting grounded.

If you have your own practice that you'd like to do right now,

I invite you to do that.

If you want to stay with sound,

You want to rest your attention on touch points or rest your attention on the breath.

And I'm also going to propose a practice that I've been enjoying recently of doing nothing.

I often feel like I have too much to do and I say I want to do nothing.

So now I've been trying to practice doing nothing.

And that doesn't mean nothing's going to happen.

Thoughts will arise,

Sounds will come and go,

Sensations will appear.

But we're not pushing or pulling anything away.

We're letting things arise and pass away.

Holding it in spacious awareness.

So if you feel inclined to practice like this,

You can try it.

Can you rest in this moment?

Letting things come and go in their own time.

There's nothing to do.

There's nothing to make happen.

There's nothing you have to be.

There's nothing you can do.

Avoid externalダメー38.

Sensations appear and disappear thoughts arise and pass sounds come and go all in the field of awareness you can just rest in that you don't have to do anything you're already here experiences already happening can you rest in this moment you notice your mind is wandering a lot feel free to return to sound touch points the breath any anchor that you like to collect the mind and then if you feel ready again you can open up and relax into whatever is rising in awareness not pushing not pulling nothing you have to make happen nothing you have to do just letting awareness do its thing can you rest in that in a few moments this meditation will come to an end so I invite you before we close to take some deep breaths letting go of however this meditation was whatever came up there was challenging connecting to the feeling of breath to your body sitting thank you everybody

Meet your Teacher

Inward Bound MindfulnessMassachusetts, USA

4.7 (573)

Recent Reviews

Justin

August 11, 2025

A lovely guided meditation with gentle nudges. Thank you.

Josh

July 4, 2025

Thoroughly enjoyed this meditation. Plenty of space to abide in awareness and some timely reminders to return to the focus. Thank you 🙏

Tim

May 18, 2025

Nice! I really appreciated how you left some quiet time for us to experience doing nothing. I’m going to try introducing more of that into my own practice.

Pam

August 31, 2024

Thank you. I enjoyed the simple, clear instructions and the silent time to follow them.

Jennifer

April 16, 2023

Straightforward and simple as written. It can be be welcomed when we desire to be rest in awareness.

Tim

December 19, 2022

Really enjoyed this. Lovely silence filled guidance supporting a deep rest as awareness. 🙏

Paul

July 8, 2022

Excellent meditation with lots of silence and minus the ubiquitous distracting music. 🙏

Isabelle

January 7, 2022

Wonderful - I’ve been wanting to gravitate more towards unguided meditation and this was absolutely perfect ! Will come back to this often , soothing voice and wonderful delivery….

Francesca

May 28, 2021

Really lovely. By allowing myself to do nothing I noticed thought patterns and was able to rationalise. Very good. Thank you 🙏

Ignacio

June 8, 2020

did nothing yet letting everything happen, thank you!

Judy

April 1, 2020

I really enjoyed this meditation on doing nothing. It gave me time to give my mind a little rest from daily events. My anchor was my breath and my clock. Thank you so much

Aquatec

January 8, 2020

Really solid guidance for a “doing nothing” exercise. Calming but authentic voice. Just enough reminders. And very subtle but deep and insightful comments. Thank you so much. 🙏

Kathya

September 4, 2019

The power of doing nothing. Thanks!

Nerijus

March 1, 2019

I loved the long breaks of silence. It’s perfect.

Erik

January 7, 2019

This is an excellent practice!! I was here stuck with an anxious mind, but now I am relaxed. Thank you.

Jean

November 3, 2018

Great voice, got me to a deep state.

Judith

August 14, 2018

Beautifully spoken & paced 🙏

Rachael

August 14, 2018

Thank you for the guidance.

Margo

August 13, 2018

Perfect for where I'm at right now in my practice. Plenty of silence interspersed with gentle reminders to come back to the meditation if your mind has wandered. Thank you. :)

James

0

wow 😳 the pace and space was perfect. Will move to the top to include within my daily practice favourites.

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