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Do Nothing

Good evening, everyone, and welcome. It's nice to be with you all. It's nice to sit here. I've been sitting here during this pandemic, teaching alone with the camera a lot of the time. To have 45 minutes to sit with others in silence is something we used to do all the time. I think I took it for granted, but I haven't had that much experience of it over the last period. So, it was nice to sit with you this way. Thank you.

I debated whether to just take the evening as a time for questions and responses, and maybe we can still mostly do that. But partly out of that sitting, and a little bit out of what I've been thinking about—or being with—this topic for the day, I want to share with you that there is a lot of value if all you do in meditation is nothing.

If you sit up straight, or find some appropriate, mindful way of being with your posture, and are simply present here, you can then notice all the ways you try to do something.

Some of it is noticing that if you've been running around all day, you might feel that your body is still running. It wants to run around, and you feel the urge to bolt, to move, or to shift. And then the eyes don't want to sit still; the eyes are doing something, they're still darting around, maybe. Slowly, just by doing nothing, things settle and quiet down.

Or you might notice that you're thinking a lot, and that thinking is a sort of doing. A lot of thinking is motivated by some form of wanting—wanting something or not wanting something. There's an activity of doing: wanting, reaching, trying to understand, remembering, planning, figuring things out, telling stories to yourself. It is a kind of doing.

If the rest of you doesn't do much, if you sit quietly with your eyes closed, sooner or later you start noticing all this doing in the mind. You might also notice that the mind, at some point, doesn't want to do it anymore. It's like, "This is a lot, this is tiring. Isn't there some other way of being? Maybe enough of that already." Somehow, the mind itself will sometimes begin to settle. Partly, this is because if there's a lot of thinking, there's tension or pressure in the mind. You feel the tension and pressure after a while, and that represents some of this doing momentum of the mind. Just sitting quietly, it kind of settles down. Things get quieter and quieter, and a lot of it comes from not doing.

I say this because some people bring the habit of doing, fixing, making something happen, and trying to attain something—trying to get concentrated—with them into the meditation practice. It's not wrong to do that. In fact, sometimes it's helpful and nice to have that sort of intention or direction when you're practicing. But a lot happens just by not doing, keeping it really, really, really simple.

Sometimes, as a teacher, when I meet people whose specialty is really doing, I'll tell them that the only thing they should do in meditation is to avoid doing anything. Just that. I shouldn't give them any practice like "follow your breath." That's just too much doing for them. Just be really attentive to every movement of the mind, the heart, and the body to try to do something, make something happen, or fix something—and just don't do it. So they just don't do it. It's a school of meditation.

What's remarkable about this is that it is not passivity. You can fall asleep if you're laying down or slouched on the couch, but it's not passivity. It's the releasing of a healthy kind of energy inside of us. There's a different kind of flow of attention, of sensations, of aliveness, and of presence that's available in the body. It's a very different feeling than that of being agitated or over-caffeinated, like you plugged yourself into an electric outlet and feel kind of jangled^[1].

As we settle, some of the tiredness, some of the tensions, and all kinds of things begin to settle away, and something gets released inside. Some people call it a movement towards harmony, where the energies, sensations, feelings, and emotions in our body begin to gather together, organize themselves, and settle. There starts being a nice feeling that it is comfortable to be in the body. It's nice to be here. Even if there's pain in the body sometimes, there might be other parts of the body where there's a nourishing feeling of wholeness, a nourishing feeling of presence. It's kind of like you're in a warm bath. Like, "Wow, this is cool."

The remarkable thing is that this really good feeling—feeling good to be in your body, feeling good to be present and be here—can come, believe it or not, from not doing anything. But it's a high-quality not doing. Really sitting up and just letting be, letting be, letting be.

Sooner or later, what becomes even more delightful is that, at some point, what stands out in highlight is that our minds can know. Our minds can be aware. An awareness that is not being recruited to accomplish something or to do something. It's not being hijacked to be critical or angry, and it's not being hijacked by thoughts which are undermining or mean-spirited in some direction or another.

The awareness becomes more and more left alone because the doing quiets down. Awareness starts to become lucid, clear, and vibrant. It becomes its own wonderful thing. Just like the body feels like you're in a bath after a while, the mind and the awareness can feel like the fog has cleared. Suddenly, the clouds and fog clear completely. Everything is so clean and clear, and it feels so good.

This talk came a little bit out of an appreciation for how much can happen by not doing in meditation. One of the ways to use mindfulness is to be very attentive to how you're starting to do something. "Oh, there it is, trying to make something happen, trying to get something, trying to get rid of something." Notice it, and experiment with it. It's really good to see all that and back away. Just, "Okay, don't do it. Just let it be." And then see what happens next.

So mindfulness is used to support this not doing, rather than mindfulness being used in support of attaining, getting, fixing, correcting, or whatever else it gets caught in. I offer these words feeling that there's a whole process that can unfold when we sit and meditate. It can feel super healthy and super good, and you didn't accomplish anything—imagine that!

Anyway, those are my words. I hope they make some sense. I hope they're a little bit inspiring for you to appreciate the value of not doing in this high-quality way in which we do it in meditation.

Q&A

Gil: So now, if you have any questions, comments, or protests, you're welcome to take the mic and speak.

Anne Rose: Hi, good evening. Thank you so much for the sitting.

Gil: What's your name?

Anne Rose: Anne Rose. The part where you were talking about noticing when you are doing something—what about when you're trying to investigate? Like with those acronyms, like RAFT^[2]? Isn't that a good thing?

Gil: Yeah, well, there are many ways of practicing mindfulness. There are ways that are more active like this. I spend a lot of time in meditation just being with my breathing. I choose my breathing, and I'm there with it. So, I'm kind of doing something there. Sometimes, using the RAFT acronym practice is really helpful because if you don't do it, it's worse. If you don't do it, you're really caught up in everything. But if you go through this kind of investigation, things settle down. You see clearly what's happening, and you see what you can stop doing; you see what you can relax. Over time in this practice, we learn when it's wise to be a little bit more actively involved, and when we're better off backing off and doing nothing. Both are needed, and at different times different things are useful.

My words today were motivated by meeting a lot of meditators who err on the side of doing, and they don't understand the not-doing part very well. Both are good. And if right now you're learning and getting your bearings with the doing part, and you're enjoying it and it's working for you, keep doing it.

Anne Rose: Well, it's not so much enjoyment, just being aware that I am doing something that I would probably rather not want to be doing.

Gil: Once you notice you're doing something you don't want to do, you might be halfway there. So don't underestimate how powerful it is to say, "Oh, look at me doing it again. I'm doing it, and I don't want to do this." Congratulate yourself, and then let it be. Say, "Okay, I'm going to watch you for a while. I'm just going to be with you for a while," as opposed to getting in there immediately and doing something. See if you can appreciate what you've noticed. Maybe that's all you need to do. Now you can just keep an eye on it, and what will probably happen is it will settle by itself.

Anne Rose: Thank you so much, that was really helpful.

Gil: A lot of the difficult things we do in our mind—and this is not always true—cannot really be sustained if they're being watched. So you don't have to do anything but watch.

Lika: Hello. I haven't been here for years; it's so nice to come back in person. I'm Lika. In my family, ADD runs in our genes. So this idea of not doing is more difficult on that level because the mind is constantly distracted externally. Also, we get paid to be very efficient and do a lot here in Silicon Valley. Efficiency, get it done, do, do, do, to-do lists, right? Since I'm not retired yet or independently wealthy, how can I sit with nothing and do nothing when everything around me is always moving, moving, moving, and my mind always grabs on?

Gil: There's a secret visualization practice. When Silicon Valley is coming down heavy on you, telling you that you should be efficient, you visualize yourself sticking your tongue out at all of Silicon Valley. [Laughter] That's what you think of that, at least when you're meditating. It's like, "Leave me alone, enough already."

These things become habits, or even addictions at times—doing, making, all that. It's really helpful to have something like meditation that breaks the momentum of being pulled and caught, on and on. It's unhealthy the way people are caught in the efficiency cycle. Pretty soon, they're being efficient in recreation, play, eating... The sooner, the quicker, the better, right? Because we want to be efficient.

It becomes a habit. You want to break that cycle if you can, but it's hard. Mental habits and addictions are hard to break. Sometimes meditation is not strong enough, and sometimes exercise is stronger. Other things sometimes work better than sitting and meditating if you get really caught in something.

For people who have so-called Attention-Deficit Disorder—I have close friends and colleagues who are meditation teachers who have that. It's possible to have that kind of mind. It's better not to call it a disorder; it's just another way the mind works. You just have to learn how to work with that mind. What one of my friends has learned to do, especially, is that he concentrates in short spurts. He can get very concentrated for a few seconds, and he's just content with that. Then he gets around to doing it again. He can't sustain the focus, but he does it in small spurts, and he's very happy with that. It's worked really well for him. That shows there are other ways of doing it.

Someone told me that there's a Buddhist country in Asia where the Buddhist monks have been prohibited from teaching on contentment, because content workers don't work very hard!

Nicole: Hi, my name is Nicole. I'm really glad to be here again after so long, so thank you. I was just listening to what this young lady was saying, and I really agree. We're taught, especially as women, to be efficient, to do, do, do, and take care of everything. But what I found in my practice is that when I meditate and take that time to just blank my mind out, for some reason—I can't explain it, maybe you can—I'm more efficient. It's like there's a time to be efficient and a time not to be. Once I learned how to separate those and give myself permission not to be doing—like, let's say, here for 45 minutes—something happens in the mind where I'm able to keep track of things better. I'm able to get more done. It's compartmentalized; there's a time and a place for it. When I added meditation and quieted my mind, I got more efficient when it was time to be efficient.

Gil: Exactly. I feel the same way. An overly busy mind is scattered. It's not able to focus very well, and it's also not very intelligent or creative. A settled mind, a quiet mind, a focused mind is sometimes much more efficient and creative. You're just really present for what needs to be done. You make fewer mistakes, don't forget as many things, and the mind is more organized, available, and attentive.

I do that sometimes. If I feel like I don't have enough time for all the things on my to-do list, I'll meditate. It seems like the last thing you should do—wasting your time meditating when you could be doing things—but I find that when I finish even ten minutes of meditation, I have so much more time than I thought. Then I go about doing what I need to do, and it seems like it all works out. It brings about a better perspective.

Caroline: Hi, I'm Caroline. I have an ongoing question that I ask many people about, always wanting to find more tips and tricks. I can get to a point where I'm doing nothing—into the "white room." But I usually have a song stuck in my head. The song changes, but there's always a song that just pops in, and I don't know what to do with that. I'll notice it and be like, "Okay, there's that," but it's distracting.

Gil: Well, if it's not distracting, some people have success leaving it in the background and just continuing with their meditation without worrying about it. But if it is distracting, some people find it useful to try to understand what's going on with the song. You said it's distracting; that might be its very reason for being there. Some people use the songs in their head to comfort themselves when they're anxious. I know one person who had this for years in meditation until she finally saw, "Wow, every time I get a little anxious, that's when the songs begin." Once she understood that, it became a whole different world to live in.

Sometimes it helps to let the singing go on, but feel into the cracks of it. What's the subtle emotion that seems to be behind it? Is there some discomfort, some anxiety, or something that seems to come along with it? If there is, then we bring mindfulness to that, not to the song, and see what happens—see if that can be settled. It's tough, though, because songs can easily lead you into memories and exterior things.

It might be interesting for you to really learn mindfulness of emotions. If you develop a skilled understanding of how to recognize and be with emotions, it could give you a big handle on what's going on. I don't know if you have heard the intro class I've taught for years—you can find it on AudioDharma—but the third day is about mindfulness of emotions. There are all kinds of talks on different emotions. If you get a handle on the emotions thing, it'd probably go a long way. Just learn the skill, like the RAFT practice.

It's possible that being distracted by songs is the tip of the iceberg of something deeper inside you that you haven't really addressed or connected with. It's just the beginning of a deeper intimacy, a deeper connection to something really important. It is well worth looking into.

If it turns out it was just a habit you're caught in, I've known people who went along with the singing but changed the song. For example, there are loving-kindness^[3] songs that people do. They sing the loving-kindness phrases to a nice tune. The mind wants to go into the old songs, but it's busy with a loving-kindness tune that you're playing. That's healthy and good. It shakes things up a little bit and breaks the habit. Then you can start singing slower and slower until you get quiet.

Caroline: Those are all very helpful, thank you.

Anne: Sorry about that, Jim, you're getting your workout with the mic! [Laughter] My name is Anne. So, I've got a number of health issues going on that have got me all worried. During the day, I seem to be able to just notice the emotions, notice the worry, notice the fear, and I have ways of processing it, managing it, or just observing it. But lately, I've been waking up at three in the morning, and the mind is wanting to solve all the world's problems that I'm dealing with. At that time, I don't have access to any of those processing tools. Reminding myself, "We don't need to deal with this now, we'll deal with it tomorrow," doesn't work at three in the morning. I end up losing an hour of sleep, and I'm wondering if you have ideas for a sleep meditation or something to deal with the three o'clock in the morning worries.

Gil: The one thing that's useful to do—if you get a sense that this is a regular pattern and you know you're just going to be awake for the next hour or an hour and a half—is to get up and meditate. Get out of bed, go find your meditation seat, and take the meditation posture. The quality of attention in the meditation posture, your ability to not get caught in the concerns, is much higher than when laying in bed. It might break the reactivity, the cycles, or the pull, and let you relax more deeply than you can when you're laying there.

Anne: That's brilliant. I've gotten up and walked into the kitchen and gotten something to drink, and that will sometimes break it, but this sounds more direct.

Gil: Yeah, and you might even prepare yourself so you have it all set up. Have a warm blanket you can just put around yourself right away, and just sit there for a while. I was really surprised when I started meditating. Even when I had a good night's sleep, I would meditate in the morning and feel more relaxed and rested after the meditation than when I woke up. Qualitative good can happen there. Two things can happen: one is it allows you to relax, let go, and settle; the other is that because you're practicing mindfulness, you might discover better than when you are in bed what's really going on. Maybe there's something that needs to be addressed.

There's also something which happens apparently that some of it might just be aging. As some people get older, they don't sleep as well and wake up in the middle of the night. Rather than making it some great big psychological problem, maybe your sleep patterns have just changed. So maybe other things need to shift so you can wake up in the middle of the night, do something efficient, and then go back to sleep and sleep in late.

Amanda: I'm Amanda. It's been a while, several years perhaps, since I've meditated in this Buddhist fashion. But I have been "microdosing" meditation. I realized that to keep the parts of the day from running into each other, I could just take three breaths: one, two, three. It helps me move quietly from one activity to the next. I do that quite a lot during the day whenever I think about it, and when I go to sleep. Today when I came here to sit, it was as if I hadn't forgotten the whole meditation process. I had kept it with me in a little bag. To be able to sit here and just be at leisure reminded me that I hadn't forgotten.

Gil: Fantastic. It was in there waiting for you, and you kept it alive with these three-breath meditations. What a great thing you're doing throughout the day.

Amanda: Thank you.

Gil: I love the expression "microdosing on meditation." I hear it's good for depression, too. [Laughter]

Jay: Hi, my name is Jay. I haven't spent too much time on sutta^[4] study, but moderately. The sense I get often is I read it, and sometimes I can feel it's just loaded, you know, more than just the words. I can feel a sense of compactness in it. But there are times when there are three refrains—this stuff is repeated like three times. By the time I get to the third time, I'm sort of checked out. My question is this: I get the sense that the Buddha doesn't say anything non-essential. He keeps it tight and compact. So when I read these repetitions, it feels like it almost goes against the grain compared to when he doesn't repeat. I'm wondering why he repeats things three times. Is there more to it? Because the flavor of that feels very different from when he's not repeating and it feels so compact and essential.

Gil: This ancient literature was originally composed to be chanted. When you chant the refrain—when you sing a song that has a refrain [Laughter]—most people are quite happy. There's a comfort in that, a familiarity, and a delight to be able to say, "Oh, there's the refrain," and you go back into it. There's the rhythm and everything, and it just feels really good. It sinks deeper and deeper. I've done years of Buddhist chanting now, repeating the same thing over and over again, and it goes in deeper and deeper. It's almost like each time you chant it, it goes in deeper, because there's a different avenue of absorption in chanting than in reading. It's very different.

These ancient chants, which became translated into English and printed, are kind of deadly to read sometimes. If you want to go to sleep, read some of it.

Jay: When you chanted, was it in Pali^[5]? Was it in English?

Gil: I've done all kinds of things—Pali, English, Sino-Japanese.

Jay: Do you get any feeling or effect even if it is in a different language?

Gil: The words don't mean as much to me then, but the chanting itself does—the rhythm, the tone, the voice, the vibrations in the body, the concentration that's needed. Sometimes when you run a chant in a different language, you have to be really present. By the time I finish chanting, I'm not distracted anymore. It's very focusing.

So what you might do if you like to read these suttas is to memorize some of it. Repeat it from memory over and over again, and see how it affects you. It can just be repeated in your mind; it doesn't have to be out loud. In the ancient world, they didn't have books. You couldn't go to the library and pick up a book to look at later. The only time the teaching was there was either when you heard someone speak it, or you memorized it. People's ability to memorize was much better back then. Our ability to memorize has decreased dramatically in our culture. People would memorize it, and then they'd have their library with them. They'd repeat it to themselves to think about it and be with it. Memorization requires something much deeper inside of us than just knowledge.

Jay: Wow, that's great. Just to follow up on that: sometimes I go to the Zen Center in the city. I used to skip the service after the 5:40 sit. Lately, I've been staying. Sometimes they chant in English, and sometimes they chant in Japanese. When I do the Japanese one, it feels awkward, like I don't understand anything. But from what I'm taking, you're saying I should still do it—there's still something there.

Gil: Yeah, give yourself over to it. If you find any resistance, boredom, or judgments about it, that's all extra. You can learn not to succumb to those kinds of reactions to what's happening, and just give yourself over to it completely, as if it's the most important thing in the world. By the time you finish, your mind will be still and quiet. If you're struggling with it, getting angry, thinking, "Why am I doing this? It's a foreign language, I can't understand it, this is ridiculous"—it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if you don't think that way, it can become something quite meaningful.

Jay: Great, thank you.

Gil: We should mention chanting the Heart Sutra^[6] in English. I used to chant it a lot, and there was something very powerful. There are these lines: "no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body..." It's like a drum beat. It goes over and over, going deeper and deeper. With this negation that you hear, something lets go, something lets go, something lets go each time. I didn't even know what was being let go, but it was like, "Everything goes, everything goes." It was a lovely emptying.

Michael: Hi, my name is Michael. Earlier you spoke about the mindfulness of doing nothing versus doing something, and I was going to ask: what would you suggest is probably the best way to segue between the both? It took me back to a time when I was a kid in Mass, trying to get through church rather quickly, doing the prayers, the Hail Marys, and Our Fathers... and the clock didn't move! Sometimes I'll catch myself in the middle of mindfulness thinking, "Am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong?" and I try to segue between doing something and doing nothing.

Gil: I think with all those tendencies in your mind, the response to all of them is: slow down. Slow down.

Michael: Thank you.

Conclusion

Gil: So that was nice, thank you. We're supposed to have five more minutes, so could we have the mic go around and you say your names? I like to feel the whole group and hear all the voices.

(The group passes the microphone around, sharing their names.)

Gil: Wonderful. Thank you all very much. Thank you for coming. I appreciate this very much, to have this chance to be with you this way. I hope you have a wonderful week, and thank you.