🕊️ Doing, Not Doing: The Art of Meditation

A reflection on the paradox at the heart of true meditation — the stillness that moves, the action that requires no effort.

At the beginning of each class, we take a moment or two to meditate. There are countless ways to meditate—dozens of postures, focal points, and techniques—but there is also what the master calls Doing, Not Doing.

It’s not doing nothing. It's doing nothing.

I suggest no posture, only some comfortable position of stillness. No breathwork, no drishti (eye focus), no mudra, no mantra. No mental gymnastics. Simply allow awareness to rest—first on our perceptions (senses), then in the body-mind, (sensations) then on the breath. Bookmark the present moment. And throughout the class, make new bookmarks each time you rest. In this way, yoga becomes instructive in your own patterns: what you are aware of, and what you can become aware of—on and off the mat.

The art of meditation is in learning to do nothing—to rest in awareness without interference. Doing, Not Doing.

In an older post, I said that as I sat in meditation, I couldn’t stop my thoughts—that I utterly failed. I want to clarify that.

When you sit in meditation, thoughts will come and go and come back again. This is not failure. This is meditation. If your practice allows you to see the mind from a different vantage point—to become aware of the many facets of your personality and conditioned self—then you are already meditating. The only “failure” would be to resist what arises, to try to escape the thoughts instead of seeing them.

What you resist, persists.

Still, my sense of failure came from something else. After years of meditation, I know my own mind well. What bothered me that day was fear—for no good reason—that I couldn’t shake. I just wanted a few minutes of silence, to rest in truth. But my mind had another plan:

Let’s obsess over this little issue on our task list right now, even though we’ll fix it in less than an hour. Right now. Right now. Right now.

For heaven’s sake, it does not have to be right now! Who is this person thinking these ridiculous thoughts? And who is the one asking those questions? And who, finally, is writing this reflection—looking at both of those people who are no longer even present?

It becomes clear that what we want to think about and what we actually think about are rarely the same thing. We are not our thoughts. We are having thoughts. We are receiving thoughts. Thoughts happen to us.

The same is true for feelings. We are not their source, merely their witness. Therefore, we are not in full control of our personality either. That’s quite a realization—and only meditation can show you that truth.

Meditation at its most magnificent is self-inquiry. See what happens when you sit. Don’t resist what comes up—become aware of it. Notice your patterns. Notice how you’re conditioned to respond to life. Be your own best friend. Listen to your poor self. Ask: am I two people? Or three? Observe the fickle nature of the egoic self.

From this awareness, new possibilities arise—new ways of responding to life, if you wish. What arises is self-mastery. What arises is self-actualization.

The highest form the ego can take is the self-actualized form. No enlightenment required. One can live a deeply peaceful, meaningful life from that place—awake enough to see the whole play, and kind enough to let it unfold.

Doing, Not Doing. Not a command, but a discovery. When you stop trying to manage reality, you begin to move in harmony with it. You realize you were never the doer to begin with—only the awareness through which doing happens.

Sat nam, you beautiful thing.

With love,

Andrea

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