Karen Maezen Miller on how meditation helps her bring “doing nothing” into everything she does.
Photo by Jeshoots.
There must be something in the connotation of the word “being” that makes it seem like the opposite of “doing.” I say that because I’m sometimes asked how, as an avowed meditator, I ever get things done. Perhaps they picture me curled up in a corner.
A regular meditation practice is the last thing that prevents me from totally engaging in activity.
It helps me do more even as I think about it less. Hidden in the question is how preoccupied we are with “to-doing” rather than doing. To-doing or should-be-doing takes up quite a bit of time. It could well be the principal occupation of our lives: imagining scenarios, planning strategies, fretting outcomes, second-guessing choices and then sticking the whole rigmarole back into the familiar rut that’s so hard to get out of.
Emptying the mind of that kind of doing opens it up to a spontaneous and creative undoing that is quite marvelous and, I dare say, breathtaking. I loved it when Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls described how the best songs come “like singing telegrams” during meditation. Working toward a deadline, sitting ignites my writing when I least expect it. These days I carry a tiny notepad to the cushion to record passages that arrive when I am going nowhere and doing nothing. I’m done in no time, although it’s not my goal.
Emptying the mind opens it up to a spontaneous and creative undoing that is quite marvelous and, I dare say, breathtaking.
Yasutani Roshi said as much in the seminal Three Pillars of Zen: “There comes a point in your sitting when insights will flash into your mind. If you don’t jot down things that you want to remember, this could bother you and interfere with your concentration. You may want to keep a pencil and notebook next to you.”
Start moving, and the flow goes with you. Every peak-performing athlete is functioning within the realm of non-doing, the state of clear awareness commonly called “the zone.” Can you get there without a meditation practice? Trying to has become a religion unto itself. Productivity gurus attract devotees by the zillions. Leo Babauta, the founder of the insanely popular productivity site Zen Habits, has created one of the best-read blogs on the Internet. And although he doesn’t follow Zen, he recognizes it when he sees it. As Seung Sahn taught, the less you know about Zen, the more you understand.
Still, I find my habits are hard to change, particularly without the stabilizing habit of meditation. It’s in meditation that I see my most insidious habit: the “to-doing” that keeps me from getting things done. So I meditate, yes, but without making it one more thing to do. Then the doing and the being are the same.
How do you get nothing done?
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I have cultivated non-striving in computer programming before trying it on the cushion, and it seems that in sitting I have the chance to notice the particular qualities of the heap I call myself. In programming one sees very clearly that concentration must be built up while neither pushing this way nor that way until the problem is truly seen at which point the answer is obvious. But one never sees the series of imaginary fears and hopes that parade through the mind causing one to clench up and miss the flow. In sitting I find I notice over and over the unreality of the fear/hope and the specific nature of the fear/hope, so that when the fear/hope shows up at a time when I am called to act, I am not as bound to it. In sitting I see how what I’ve thought of as myself is this sensible effect of the details of my life, and in so seeing my perspective gets a bit less personal. It is just when I see clearly that I tense up say when I am criticized that I can get through a meeting where I am to be criticized with good humor. To see myself as this sensible heap of stuff rather than a great and powerful whole let’s me laugh when part of that heap wants me to freak out.
All that studying of the self is much easier when I am just trying to sit still than when I am trying to slice a messy problem into beautiful answers (programming).
I have started biking, and I find a similar thing there – both sitting and biking reward me when I am on the bike/on the cushion, but while biking the fears are not just imaginary so I do not see how I crank myself up so easily.
love it!!!!
ah Karen…So well said…and exactly what I needed to hear to remind me to get out of my to-dos and onto my cushion!
It's mutual, Meg.
If I didn't know better, I would swear that you wrote this for me!
Better not know better.
Well, if I don't think about it too hard, I get nothing done. No, I really mean nothing. Nada. Zilch. 0.
Interesting, I have been wondering lately if writing something down as it comes to me is acceptable during meditation practice. Now I know that it is ok. Great!