The Art of Doing Nothing

In the context of a meditative way of life, doing nothing can be experienced as the silence of sitting meditation, as a form of mental surrender, as effortless performance, intuitive action, open receptivity to constantly changing circumstances or at its peak as an experience of immanent completeness, with nothing to be done and nothing to look for.

The art of doing nothing is not a passive state; the Taoist term for the art of doing nothing is ‘wei wu wei’, which means:

…the ‘action without action’, a way of acting without trying to act. Action happens naturally, spontaneously – instead of being contrived, it is more direct and natural.

The ancient Zen masters spoke of a non-intentional movement inspired by ‘no-mind’, a way of being that is not driven by thought or ingenuity, but instead initiated by spontaneous intuition. In modern Western terms, I think an example of this type of action can be found in sports. Athletes have described a performance state of effortlessness and mindlessness called being “in the zone,” which unlocks their full potential and allows athletes to perform amazing feats with a sense of grace and ease.

Alan Watts does an excellent job of describing inaction in his book “Tao: The Watercourse Way,” where he describes the average person’s predicament as someone stuck in a river, clinging to the riverbank. The average person is held captive by holding on, flailing around in the mud around the edges, and trying to escape. Watts explains that doing nothing amounts to letting go of the edges and literally going with the flow of the river.

All it takes to access the ‘zone’ or ‘no-mind’ or ‘wei wu wei’ is to let go and go with the flow; trim the sails and go downwind. The art of doing nothing does not hold on or grab, but moves effortlessly and smoothly with the flow. No effort is needed once you make the effort to let go of the couch, but letting go isn’t actually “doing” something, it’s more like undoing something. By letting go you achieve everything. As Lao Tzu says in the Tao Te Ching:

“I do nothing and yet nothing remains undone.”

During formal sitting meditation, doing nothing with your thoughts is the most important part of a powerful technique that is at the heart of Buddhist practice. Calm meditation involves detachment from thoughts, not following thoughts or pushing them away. Just letting thoughts be, the ability to do nothing with thoughts and be able to rest naturally. “Zazen,” the core practice of Zen meditation, literally means “just sitting,” which is pretty close to simply doing nothing. this simply sitting is not a means to an end, like creating a goal to achieve enlightenment, but as Zen master Dogen implies: simply sitting is the expression of realizing that enlightenment is already there and that there is no ‘ there’ is to achieve.

“If you can’t find enlightenment where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”

Tibetan Meditation Master Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche explains how doing nothing during meditation can heal and purify our minds:

“Meditation is one of the rare cases where we do nothing. Otherwise we’re always doing something, we’re always thinking something, we’re always busy. We get lost in millions of obsessions and fixations. But by meditating – by doing nothing – all these fixations come to light and our obsessions will naturally unwind themselves, like a snake uncoiling itself.”

Doing nothing is also a way to become deeply connected to all that is, because there is no resistance to what you experience. There is no agenda, nothing needs to be changed and nothing needs to be done, there is simply open receptivity to the now. Not having to change anything to achieve peace is the radical and powerful way of meditation. Meditation master Tilopa even advised in a famous 10th-century meditation teaching given by the Ganges in India that the best action is action-free, and that the highest of all behaviors is no action. In the same way that action can exist within ‘non-action’, stillness can exist within movement as the point of balance from which movement occurs. Eckhart Tolle describes two types of action in his book Stillness Speaks: ‘one works through thoughts, the other through silence. “

…It is precisely this operation from silence that is the art of doing nothing, the art of being still in movement.

Doing nothing is not a static state of affairs, because that is impossible. Everything is in motion, including our own minds and bodies; doing nothing means moving effortlessly and harmoniously with the infinite circumstances of life, with the flexibility to accept constant fluctuations. Surrendering to the unpredictable flow of life brings with it the ability to love easily, as you recognize your connection to all that is. Of course, this doesn’t mean that your life will suddenly be perfect. It does mean that you can find grace and freedom in any situation, because the art of doing nothing is inherently harmonizing and as Bruce Lee says:

“Simplicity is the key to genius.”

Once you skillfully ‘do nothing’, you move through life effortlessly and learn to rely on the essential practice of non-grasping and non-inventing. This allows you to maintain a continuous, meditative, natural state of ease, whether the river flow is tumultuous or gentle. Trust in the flow comes from our direct experience of doing nothing and simply being, discovered in the silence of meditation practice. This is where we discover the silent ‘nothing’ within that is actually full of love, bliss and wisdom. There is nothing to do, because we already are what we seek. Meditation master Chogyam Trungpa calls this discovering our “fundamental goodness.” The art of doing nothing is therefore the art of letting go into the flow of fundamental goodness.

Chad Foreman is the founder of The Way of Meditation and has been teaching meditation since 2003, determined to bring authentic meditation practices into the lives of millions of people in the modern world. Chad is a former Buddhist monk who lived in a retreat hut for six years and studied and practiced meditation full-time. He now has over twenty years of experience teaching meditation. Chad likes regularly
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