We perpetually feel the need to be doing something. Sitting silently, doing nothing, we get fidgety and anxious. We feel compelled to take up tasks, projects, or trips, even if they are meaningless; or we feel the urge to escape repeatedly into entertainment, which is yet another thing to do, something with which to occupy oneself.
In this state of compulsive activity, contentment has to be postponed until everything you must do is complete. But cunningly, in self-deceit, you keep on finding and creating new things to do. If you are not occupied and nothing is being done, you feel restless and bored, afraid of missing out on something. Existential dread starts setting in. Many, if not most, of our activities are just a means of escaping from not doing anything. And so we prevent ourselves from ever being fully content, relaxed, and happy.
For a change, remain in this state of not doing. Try to look at it in a different way, as a state of just “being”.
In being, you are here and now, whereas in doing, you move away from the here and now, into some future, far away goal. In being is serene stillness. Sitting silently, with eyes closed: just be, don’t do.
Striving, seeking, searching, accomplishing, reaching, trying — doing has many forms. When all forms of doing and all efforts are dropped, what remains is the state of being — and it has always been there, just under the surface of doing. Whatever needs to be done has already been done, by existence. Whatever can be created has already been created. There is no burden on you to do anything, nothing to be done, nowhere to go. As things are, they are perfect, and as you are, you are perfect.
Being is already there before doing can even begin. Nothing is needed to be done to acquire it, you already have it, you are it. Being is the precondition of doing. Just allow it to be undisturbed by doing, in its original state.
Being means being here and now, as you are, with no goal or underlying purpose – not going anywhere, not living in or for the future, not brooding over the past. Be here and now, in both body and mind. Keep in mind that doing nothing is not only a state of the body, but also of the mind. If you are sitting still, but your mind is running, you are still doing something. Thinking is doing, and so is concentration.
Imagine a lake where there are ripples in the water, and you want to get rid of the ripples. What can you do? Anything you do will only add more ripples. Only if left alone can the lake’s disturbances subside on their own. Similarly, when all ripples of doing, evaluating, analyzing, comparing, and thinking are allowed to subside – by simply being as you are, here and now – the intrinsic stillness of the mind and body is revealed.
In being is the fulfillment that we are desperately seeking by doing and pursuing. In being, insight and creativity are born spontaneously. In just being is the serenity, simplicity, and beauty of meditation.