Do Nothing - Or Less

I wanted to end seeking. People who had come to an end suggested that there was nothing I needed to do. They said,

Do Nothing.

Thought interrupts and asks, “What do you mean, do nothing?” Thought is itself, a doing. Even the thought, “OK, I get it. I’ll do nothing,” is doing. Then the thought takes shape, “OK, I’ll just give that up. I’ll just keep doing things.” That, too, misses the point; more doing.

We begin the search, finding a never-ending library of techniques to “do nothing:” art, meditation, prayer, therapy, and more. These techniques are, of course, more doing. We find techniques for doing nothing mentally. We find techniques for doing nothing physically. We try to do nothing emotionally. All of the trying, all of the ways of “not doing” amount to more doing.

We stumble upon the direction to “let go.” How DO we “let go?” There must be a way to DO it. Is it by thinking certain thoughts? Thinking the right thoughts in a particular order? Not thinking at all? Good luck. Maybe it means learning to relax the body at all times? We learn how to DO that. We DO it sometimes and beat ourselves for not DOING it more. More trying. More doing.

If we are lucky, we realize that we are in deep DO-DO. Then perhaps, grace arrives in the form of exhaustion or head-crunching frustration and we just give up. We quit the impossible game. Sometimes doing happens; sometimes doing doesn’t happen. We leave the thought alone that “I can DO” or “I can not DO.” We quit trying. We quit not-trying. We quit looking. We quit not-looking. We quit caring. We quit caring that we care. We quit thinking. We quit not thinking. We quit quitting.

Thinking and trying and techniques have done all they can do – taken the vaporous idea of a separate ME to the portal through which it cannot step and survive (though it has only ever been lived, anyway – but it will never be convinced of that). Beyond this threshold blazes the pure light of awareness – so bright it illuminates even the sun – and no vaporous form survives the transit.

When will you get to the threshold? You’ve never been anywhere else.

Where can you find it? Always right here.

How can you cross? You already have – it is from the other side of the threshold that You-being-Isness watch the “doing” of this vaporous bundle of thoughts that believes itself to exist.

Do nothing? Even that is too much.