Non-Doing

In this series on Being and Doing, the action (or rather non-action) of non-doing lies between the two poles of being and will, integrating them. One of the early articulations of this approach to living was called Wu Wei in the Tao Te Ching. In one sense it simply means the middle way, which is what the Buddha called the path that he taught. Avoiding extremes. Not cherishing opinions: we are not our opinions. Accepting what is, including ourselves, while calmly working toward a better future. Doing the right thing and not doing the wrong thing, to be able to live with a clear conscience. Equanimity and peace. Not invoking or buying into separateness: living in unity in ourselves, with others, and with nature. Living in the eternal flow, not a slave of time. Acting without a claim on being the actor: letting the right action flow through us. For example, doing our chores well, while at peace within. Serving the good, even when we will not see the results.

In some forms of meditation, we aim to allow our deeper nature to emerge and make us whole. Anything we do in that type of formless meditation can only hinder the process. Even actively refraining, actively doing nothing, is still a kind of doing. Instead, formless meditation calls us not to do anything, not to shape our experience. Just sit. Just be. This is pure being. Everything settles in us. Thoughts subside on their own, when they are not pursued or resisted. Peace descends. Time evaporates. Consciousness emerges, rising out of our receding busyness and grasping. We just are.

To come toward non-doing as a way of life, we need to enable it through balance in our spiritual practice. If we only work in that allowing, accepting way, we find that it evaporates all too quickly in the face of daily difficulties. We need also to work actively toward stability in consciousness. Opening to the interior sense of our body and then intentionally building up the sensation, the sensitive energy, throughout our body is fundamental to active inner work. Generating, opening to, and participating in positive emotions is another type of active inner work. Opening to and intentionally participating in the mind energy enables active cognition, an active relationship with our head brain. Taken together, this active work in body, heart, and mind creates a platform for consciousness. Active inner work is just as important as receptive practice, as in prayer, or passive inner work, as in formless meditation. The two sides combined lead us toward a more stable opening to non-doing.

We can make a distinction between receptive and passive. The receptive can mean turning our receiver toward a particular direction, for example in prayer, repeating a sacred name or phrase, or engaging in praise or supplication, we are intentionally turning toward the Sacred, even if we do not quite know the direction. In the passive we are not doing anything, we are allowing ourselves to be just as we are. Prayer and contemplation are actively receptive on one level and passively accepting on another: we turn toward the Sacred and are open to what comes.

Between the active and the passive modes of inner work, non-doing can enter. This is the third mode. It emerges when we are fully engaged, perhaps outwardly, while allowing the source of our engagement to come through us, from beyond our ordinary way of thinking and acting. We are not standing in middle of that stream claiming ownership, claiming authorship. We are participating in an action without being the actor. This is the artist at the easel, the musician in the music, the cook chopping, the sweeper sweeping, and the walker just walking. As the Buddha put it: "…you should train yourself thus: In what is seen there must be only what is seen, in what is heard there must be only what is heard, in what is sensed there must be only what is sensed, in what is cognized there must be only what is cognized. This is the way…"

This not claiming ownership of our experience, not referring to a presumed self who lives at our center, is crucial to non-doing. Once we see the truth that our center is empty, see it so clearly that we cannot unsee it, our identifications and attachments weaken because they are no longer so convincing, their supposed source is gone. Removing the burden of constantly creating, feeding, and defending a self that does not exist, brings us an unexpected level of peace, the peace that enables non-doing, living naturally. And conversely, our work toward living in peace, living in non-doing, helps alleviate the illusion of self and lightens that burden.

For this week, please practice non-doing and what leads to it.

Follow @innerfrontier

About Inner Frontier Send us email