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DoingNothing

Last week I finished working with two different clients, and ended up at the location where I was going to teach kayaking for the weekend a day early.

At first I wondered how I was going to fill the time, kayaking, reading, working on an article. Then I remembered the concept of actively doing nothing (I read about it in Zen in the Martial Arts by Joe Hyam).

I chose to spend the day doing nothing. It was wonderful! I felt relaxed and rejuventated. I listened to the rain, read a little, looked at trees and flowers.

Do you have an activity you like to do when you're doing nothing? DonGray 2004.05.04

I'm a forager. The best kinds of doing nothing for me involve wandering about at random some place full of activity that I am not involved with. Places like flea-markets, open-air farmers' markets, an estate sale are common. Collections of streets for walking with shops, like in Europe are another. I can have the same kind of fun wandering around a working farm, a factory, a university, or even a business, although people look at me funny, and may ask me what I'm up to.

It counts as "doing nothing" I think because it's absolutely not goal directed. Has no intended result. Has no unintended result. Just opportunities for endless fascination, and the occasional surprise: "How cool."

-- JimBullock, 2004.05.05

It's not you Bob. Describing this actively doing nothing thing is one of the great challenges. I am demonsterably so very not an expert in either the practice or describing the practice. Won't stop me from trying, however.

Actively doing nothing is similar to the Zen stories of chopping wood when you are chopping wood, and making tea when you are making tea. Not "just" chopping wood, because that focuses your mind on all the stuff you are not thinking about, including the purple elephant down the street. Perhaps "simply" chopping wood - being here now, chopping wood. In each case you are doing the one thing that you are doing right now, with only the one intention at hand.

I think you are closer with "no expectation" than with "no intention." Certainly wandering around can be something intentional meaning you have chosen to do it. What's let go is the expection of what will happen next. The two words are interwingled. If I expect that the rubber duck will go squeak when stepped upon, then I have the choice to step on the rubber duck on purpose, intending to cause it to squeak. If I have no idea about squeaky ducks, stepping on the duck may be intentional, but the expectation is limited. "I'm going to step on the duck and see what happens." So much of what we do is intentional - designed to produce a result through chains of cause and affect - that it's hard to notice the chains and inferences.

The other power-word that gets used a lot around this stuff is "receptive" or it's synonyms and variations. If you don't expect to hear any particular thing, you are much more receptive to the unexpected. One test some folks suggest is words like "be here now." For me, that's too crystal tree hugging a phrase. However, practical, engagaging, real-time activities require you to "be here now" so that's a way to get to this state. Playing music vs. music as an intellectual study is an example. Any kind of physical training, especially martial-arts or dance can work.

As for the congenitally goal-directed, sometimes you can get away with a finnesse by making a non-specific goal into the goal. "We're going to just take things in for a while, and find out what we notice. We'll stay open to whatever comes because in the end we don't know what we don't know. So after a while, we'll be a bit smarter about what's going on, but exactly what we'll discover . . . well, that's the point."

For the really hard-core you give them a number: "3 things" or a standard: "Then we'll tell each other and compare." Another form for the congenitally energetic is: "Well, let's go look at everything here." Off they zip taking in everything, with "everything" as the goal. Gotta stay open to what you don't already notice, what you don't intend to notice, or expect to notice, if you're going to take in "everything."

I wonder if this was anything like what you expected?

-- JimBullock (The highly improbable.) 2004.05.08

It's been said that music is the space between the notes. Perhaps actively doing nothing is finding and relishing the spaces in your life. DonGray (As probable as JimBullock) 2004.05.09

What's the difference between 'doing nothing' and 'wasting valuable time'? I sense a difference between the two, and I'd love to know how to spend less time doing the latter and more time practicing the former.

For instance, it's the time of month when I should be entering the financial figures into the spreadsheet so I can see how our overhead/hour and profit figures are looking. The figures are all on my desk, and will take about an hour to process. I 'want' to do it, but... I haven't yet. I've spent time surfing the net and admiring my new bonsai tree and everything but what I should be doing. I'm frustrated with myself and I'm not gaining the relaxtion and peace that come with actually 'doing nothing'.

--SuePetersen 2004.05.09

I can really relate to what you are saying about 'wasting time' and 'doing nothing'... I suspect one of the differences is 'focus' or 'attention'. If I am 'wasting time', I am usually not focusing on what I am doing right now with attention and relaxation; instead, I am using part of my mind to NOT focus on what I am supposed to be doing... and that leaves me tense.

I have on rare occasion been able to just focus on 'doing nothing' without anything else getting in the way. It seems like I need to find a way to shut down the chatter and activity constantly bouncing around in my head.... and that is not easy.

The closest I've come regularly is playing music (a drum) with other people. I get immediate feedback -- if my mind starts wandering, I lose the beat! I think that is why I love it so much!

DianeGibson 05-09-2004

What's the difference between 'doing nothing' and 'wasting valuable time'?

"Wasting valuable time" happens whenever you spend your time doing something other than what is most important to you right now. If you choose to "do nothing" as in "nothing with a defined result that others will see as valuable" you have made a choice. If you choose that "doing nothing . . . " is the most important thing for you to be doing right now, you are in no sense wasting time. You just aren't doing what someone else thinks is important. Sucks to them. It's your life after all.

Who said that "surfing the net" and "admiring <your> new bonsai tree" is less important than entering the foolish figures? Certainly not me. If it's permission you are looking for, here it is: "I, JimBullock, in my capacity as arbiter of all that is right and correct in the application of SuePetersen's valuable time declare that web-surfing and bonsai-contemplation are exactly the things that she is supposed to be doing right now . . . until she prefers to do something else." There that was easy. You are a grown up, so whatever you decide is most important to do with your time is most important to do with your time.

Of course if you give yourself permission to want what you want, you won't need me. That's one trick to "doing nothing", especially active kinds of "doing nothing" like like net surfing and bonsai-contemplation which sound to me not even a little bit like "wasting valuable time." Contemplating a bonsai tree seems very much like something valuable to me, and a large part of the point of that particular art form is exactly that it's there to be looked at, in a very un-figures-entering way.

Seems to me that you know a lot about "doing nothing", even the active, random kind. You know so much about it that you can't help doing nothing even when there are other things around you might be doing. How wonderful for you.

Next time I'll bill you for permission - the first one's free. Of course, you could figure out how to give yourself permission to do nothing when that's the best thing for you to be doing. But don't. That would put me out of business.

-- JimBullock (That'll be 5 cents, please.) 2004.05.09

<very wide grin> Well, thanks Jim! I guess I owe you a cup of your favorite beverage the next time I see you! <giggling>

<seriously> No, I'm familiar with your kind of 'doing nothing.' I don't do it often enough <sigh>, but I know how good it feels and it's a different phenomena than 'the dark nothingness.' I think Diane may have hit it on the head. There's something about focus and attention and relaxation that is very different between the two states. To drag in another metaphor, maybe two of my parts are disagreeing about what's most important for the body to be doing at this moment, and in the conflict, neither gets satisfied.

I'm very new to this bonsai thing, and I still don't know how successful I'll be at it, but I've got a couple nice young trees and one starter that's being put into a bonsai pot this week. I haven't gotten peaceful yet while watching them, I'm still focused on the "Am I doing it right? Should I be doing something to it right now? Does it need water, or pinching, or more light, or...?" But I find it peacefully meditative to wander thru the nurseries, looking at plants and pots. And I've been here before, it took a while but I can now relax and enjoy the pond lilies on my back deck. Especially since I put the waterfall in this spring, I love the sound and sight of moving water...!

--SuePetersen 2004.05.10

To drag in another metaphor, maybe two of my parts are disagreeing about what's most important for the body to be doing at this moment, and in the conflict, neither gets satisfied.

Exactly correct. The "take care of Sue part" and the "take care of business part" haven't worked out a synthesys of their goals. Which is why the only relevant permission can only come from you.

Actively or passively doing nothing is a great way to hear from your parts about whether they are feeling taken care of at the moment. If you try doing nothing and various bits and hunks just won't shut up, well that's often the point of doing nothing, to make space to hear that stuff.

-- JimBullock 2004.05.11

I suppose 'Doing nothing' can be looked at from different angles. I recall that in Richard Feynman's book 'Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman', he told a story about when he was a kid fixing a radio for a neighbor during the depression. He sat and looked at the electronics in the broken radio for awhile, without doing anything except thinking about the possible source of the problem. Then Feynman moved around a few components and the radio was fixed. The neighbor was amazed that a radio could be fixed by thinking, which to him was 'doing nothing'.

Awhile back I took a mini-vacation and went for an easy two day hike in the woods. It was quiet and peaceful, on an easy hiking trail, and my mind could wander off in neutral for long periods while I was essentially 'doing nothing'. I was surprised at how many useful new perspectives, thoughts, and ideas came spilling out unbidden during those two days...luckily I had a paper and pen with me...

-RickHower 2004.10.11

And Huw, if you're going to visit the Grand Canyon on this trip, you might still see some aspens turning gold and dropping their leaves on you. Depends a bit on the weather before you arrive. - JerryWeinberg 2004.10.12