Non-Doing

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“What is Non-Doing?”

“I use it with a double meaning.

Non-Doing is Effortless Action.

The conscious and the unconscious mind complement one another. They form one process. The conscious mind has querying power; the unconscious mind has processing power. 

The more harmoniously the conscious and the unconscious mind work together, the better your outcome. If the conscious mind overextends, trying to overcontrol the process, it interferes with the unconscious mind, which produces an imbalance.

When you perform a precision jump in Parkour for instance, the role of the conscious mind is to set the intention, form a clear desired outcome, then get out of the way. The more conscious effort you put in, the less effective you are. Doing, in this case, is non-doing – letting happen. This requires trust.

What we call confidence is essentially a deep trust in your unconscious mind.

Non-Doing is Absence of Action.

Emotions come and go, outside our control. What we control is how we respond to them. 

Unpleasant emotions hold the key to inner peace. 

When unpleasant emotions occur, the default tendency is to resist them. We feel the impulse to do something about them – anything – to make them go away. This however has the opposite effect. The more effort we put into resisting them, the more we amplify them – and the more we deny ourselves the opportunity to learn from them.

What makes those emotions unpleasant are unpleasant body sensations (a big idea I know from Joan Rosenberg’s book 90 Seconds to a Life You Love). That’s what we want to get away from. The implications of this idea are profound. Most of our failings are the result of our incapacity to fully experience emotional body sensations.

What you resist persists. Non-doing, in this case, is non-resistance [<link; medium read]: lovingly, non-judgmentally, and curiously observing the emotional sensations without doing anything about them – they inevitably go away. This builds trust.

What we call confidence is essentially a deep trust in your capacity to deal with any emotional outcome.”

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