Have you tried just ‘Doing Nothing’?

Since the time we are born we are doing something or the other. In fact, we are trained since childhood to do something, remember elders saying – “Beta do something, don’t sit idle”. Well their intention was always for good and related to pursuing worthy activities like studies, sports etc. But unfortunately there was also ignorance about the empowerment ’Doing Nothing’ brings in our lives. So when people want to take rest from work they spend a weekend doing nothing. But that nothing would mostly mean watching Netflix, movies or some match on TV. Few would skip that and just laze around, so among the two who was actually “Doing Nothing’? To most people the latter one was actually ‘Doing Nothing’, isn’t it? But reality is that neither of them were ‘Doing Nothing’, they were still ‘Doing Something’.

The something for the former one is still visible, but for the latter one it is not. Because it is mostly happening in the realm of Mind. One may be thinking of hundred different things while lazing around. So you see ‘Doing Nothing’ is actually not happening, all the time we are ‘Doing Something’, physically or mentally. Does that make ‘Doing Nothing’ apparently difficult to achieve? Well it is one of the most difficult thing we can learn to do. At the same time it is probably the most rewarding one. Doing other thing in life are actually much easier. Think for a moment when there are no thoughts running around in your mind. Looks impossible right? Yes it is, because our mind is a random thought generator. Just like the work of heart is to pump blood our mind keeps generating thoughts. So does it mean ‘Doing Nothing’ is impossible. No, it’s very much possible. Now the question is ‘How’? 

First let’s understand ‘Doing Nothing’, when we say ‘Doing’ we are actually talking about actions which are in our control, so ‘Doing Nothing’ just means not doing that. What happens when a thought comes to our mind? We start to dwell in it and then think more about it, go into past or future. One thought leads to another and that to another even our emotional state changes, mostly this brings suffering. After sometime this chain breaks, and we are back in the present, but then another random thought comes and the story repeats again. In this whole story of thoughts where did we Act? It was at that moment when we identified with the very first thought that popped up. Now mind isn’t a physical machine that we can control with a switch for it to stop producing thoughts. However, we can definitely control our reaction and that is by not identifying with the thought in the very first place. That is what ‘Doing Nothing’ means. So the mind may keep on producing thoughts but we just ‘Do Nothing’ about it, we only watch it come and go, as a neutral observer. What happens then? Slowly and slowly our mind gets exhausted in throwing yet another pop-up because it didn’t get the necessary attention for long which it sought to continue its activity. Our Mind is just like a talkative person, who keeps chattering till you keep encouraging them with a reaction to what they have to say. Their story keeps going on and on like our Saas-Bahu TV shows. But once you stop giving any attention to them slowly after sometime you will see their chatter comes down and it may also stop. Same happens with our mind.