This is part one of a two-part series on do-nothing meditation.
The title of this talk is do nothing meditation,
The can't go wrong meditation.
Sitting quietly,
Doing nothing,
Spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
Basho.
Just let everything be here,
Fully experienced from beginning to end.
Let it unfold on its own.
It needs no help from me.
It is life.
Tony Packer.
In one of his most well-known poems,
The great Sufi poet Rumi encourages us to treat our minds and lives the way we would treat our very own guest house.
In the guest house of our lives,
As Rumi points out,
There are new arrivals and departures coming and going all the time.
Sometimes joy arrives to check in,
But other days it is depression that comes calling.
What does Rumi counsel us to do when faced with this endless parade of invited and uninvited guests knocking at our life's door?
Welcome and entertain them all,
He says.
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.
Treat each guest honorably,
Rumi reminds us,
For they may be clearing you out for some new delight.
When the dark thought,
The shame,
The malice come calling,
Rumi implores,
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
He encourages us to be grateful for whoever comes,
For each visitor has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Rumi's poem provides us with a blueprint for contemplative practice,
Both on and off the meditation cushion.
On the cushion,
Rumi suggests that we sit with whatever arises,
Allowing thoughts,
Sensations,
And emotions to come and go at their own time.
Making no distinction between pleasant and unpleasant experiences,
The Sufi poet recommends that we let all that is here to manifest itself,
Even if what is here is sorrow and pain.
Especially when what is here is sorrow and pain.
This way of meditating,
When we sit with no agenda and allow whatever is here to arise without judging the goodness or badness of what arises,
Is coextensive with the kind of practice that I call do-nothing meditation.
We let everything be here without cultivating a preference for certain states or experiences over others.
As we sit down to do nothing,
Agitated and peaceful mental states are held in equal regard.
When our only task is to sit with whatever is here,
There is no need to split up experience into right and wrong.
In much the same way as Rumi enjoins us to not distinguish between good and bad house guests.
So in keeping with the spirit of Rumi's guest house,
The meditation practice that I present here simply requires that we allow what is here to manifest itself.
The instructions themselves are quite simple,
So simple that they can actually be reduced to a single injunction.
Whatever happens,
Happens.
If the mind wants to think,
We allow it to think.
If we find ourselves silently singing the lyrics to a catchy song,
We allow our mind to sing to its heart's content.
If an unhappy train of thought pops into our mind,
We give ourselves permission to be with sadness for as long as it is here.
There is no correct or incorrect way of doing this meditation.
Because there is no correct or incorrect way for experiences to arise.
When we practice in this way,
We let the present moment unfold in whatever way it sees fit.
Trusting that we can be with it all.
Rather than fighting against what is here,
We align ourselves with it.
Understanding that things can only be what they are for the simple reason that everything is what it is.
This practice I call do nothing meditation because it offers no method and requires no effort.
When we practice in this way,
There is nothing to do,
Nowhere to go and no problem to solve.
Showing up and being with what is here until the bell rings is more than enough.
And if what is here is a lack of alignment with what is here,
Then we align ourselves with our lack of alignment.
As we continue to allow whatever happens to happen,
We notice that do nothing meditation cannot be done improperly.
We realize that do nothing is the can't go wrong meditation.
Since anything that we end up doing is already by definition included in whatever happens happens.
Realizing this impacts everything in our meditation from our posture to what we do during the sit to the amount of time we meditate.
This practice that I'm offering here can be done on one's back or belly standing,
Sitting or walking.
It does not require that we concentrate on the breath or on any other object of attention.
It can be done anywhere at any time and for however long we want from five seconds to five hours.
As we begin to practice do nothing meditation,
One of the first things that we notice is that we are often unsure whether we are doing something or nothing.
This is most common when we realize that our mind gets distracted.
When we notice this,
Should we let the mind get further lost in distraction?
Or would that amount to doing something?
Should we instead put an end to the distracting thoughts or would that be incompatible with doing nothing?
By the same token,
When we notice that we are resisting whatever is arising in the present moment,
Does doing nothing call us to try to let go of the resistance?
Or does it require that we continue resisting?
These questions have no obvious answers pointing to the slipperyness of the line between doing and non doing.
Depending on how we look at it,
It would seem that either course of action can be described as doing nothing.
Even when we begin to intuit that the distinction between doing something and doing nothing may be arbitrary.
We still struggle to do do nothing meditation,
Quote unquote,
Correctly.
We flounder as we figure out whether we are trying to change experience that is doing something.
Or whether we are simply being with experience that is doing nothing.
With time,
However,
And this is the key.
We come to terms with the fact that the question regarding whether we are doing something or nothing is unknowable.
There are no answers forthcoming because as philosophers know quite well,
The distinction between action and inaction between something and nothing is slippery,
Fluid,
Dynamic and evanescent.
In Buddhist parlance,
We would say that the distinction between doing and non doing is empty.
While it may not seem like it at first glance,
Getting to the place where we are unable to tell if we are doing something or nothing is a feature,
Not a bug of do nothing practice.
The reason is that it gives us an early glimpse into the unfathomable emptiness that lies at the core of all experience.
In practical terms,
The process goes something like this.
We are initially tasked with the simple job of doing nothing.
We then think that we failed because we end up doing what we felt to us as something rather than nothing.
In actuality,
However,
We didn't fail.
Instead,
What we realized,
If only for a fleeting moment,
Is that one of the most basic distinctions in human experience,
That of action versus inaction,
Is ultimately empty.
And if this most basic of human distinctions is empty,
Then one may start asking what other experiences and distinctions that I take for granted are empty or inherently mysterious.
With time,
This way of practicing leads to giving ourselves permission to do nothing without caring about whether what we are doing is something or nothing or whether what we're doing is right or wrong.
