When is the last time you tried to do absolutely nothing?
There is a “normal” level of busy-ness in our lives. We all have things to do, things we have to give our attention to, problems to sort out, plans to make and then execute. That seems to be an unavoidable part of being a human. Then there is our spiritual development – the busy-ness that entails: we have to face our shadows, constellate our external families, unify and de-traumatise our internal families, awaken our Kundalinis, gather the bones and sing the songs of our Ancestors. We have to clarify intentions and manifest our desires and face the cardinal directions and observe the celestial movements to synchronise our beings with the greater forces. We have to breathe and align and ground and observe. It all kinda feels. like a lot, all of the time, doesn’t it?
So when do we get to just do nothing? I have memories of being a child in the time before the internet, before cell phones, before social media, before 24-hour TV. One of the things I hated back then but I long for now, is doing absolutely nothing. Sunday afternoons were the worst(best). After church and lunch, my parents would go for an extended afternoon nap. I am an only child, so no there were no siblings to play with. No TV – South Africa would only get more regular programming years later. No entertainment. So I drew. I looked at the pictures in the set of encyclopaedias in my dad’s study. And then I did absolutely nothing. It was the most boring, excruciatingly long epoch of nothingness any human had ever known.
How I long to feel time take that long these days!
There is one thing we can do to steer ourselves into that direction. To feel that emptiness of time taking its sweet time to pass. To be burdened by nothing, rushed by nothing. To be in a state of equanimity. That thing is wu wei – the art of non-doing.
Like a lot of the things we know are good for us, the idea of it is simple to understand but it is not necessarily easy to do. Wu wei is stillness. Emptiness. Aware of, but detached what is going on around us. It is emptying out the mind of all its incessant thinking and hearing the underlying heart beat of ourselves, of nature, the universe. When we detach from the mind that is constantly shouting its demands and opinions, we can start to hear the whispers of our innate wisdom. Wu wei is calm. It’s trust that the river of life is taking us in exactly the direction that we need to be going in, and therefore we don’t have to struggle.
Sometimes we need to act – wu wei acknowledges that in certain moments, we need to assert, accomplish, complete. When action is taken, it is done precisely and with acute awareness and care. And then attachment to the outcome is released and instead replaced with the deep trust that this concerted, precise action will yield the correct results. The best effort had been given. There is no need to further ponder or second-guess. It is done. There is a beautiful freedom in that.
In the times that one is not taking the precise, aware action that is required in the moment, one is still. Calm. Empty of thoughts racing. Empty of the excruciating mind-loops that take us out of the present and into the past or the future. It involves a lot of deep breathing. Also a lot of letting go – of desired outcomes, of needing people to do certain things and be certain ways. In this letting go of this constant tug-of-war that goes on in the mind, there is a wonderful internal peace that descends. From this internal peaceful space, emerges joy. And new focus, and new creativity. New observations. A calmness radiates. The clock turns back to when one was little and life was unencumbered and time felt interminably long.
This time around, though, instead of a punishment, it feels like a magical, joyous gift 🙂
