In the beginning, God said: “Let there be light!” (to himself like a weirdo). 13.7 billion years later the Buddhists responded: “Hey! Turn off that light! It’s distracting and causing us dukkha.”
In some sense the Do Nothing technique is simultaneously the antithesis and the epitome of meditation. Is the antithesis because you aren’t actually doing anything. You aren’t applying any special mental/attentional moves. You aren’t trying to be highly concentrated or mindful. Nothing. However, doing nothing doesn’t come easy to people. Most of the time, there is an insistent desire to modify experience; to curate the content of consciousness. Yet it is the epitome of meditation because it retrains the mind to be able to just be with whatever is. With this technique, over time, the organism learns to be able to downregulate the circuits involved in efforting and intention setting, resulting in less selfing, less suffering and eventually even Nibbāna/Nirvana (the extinguishing of a flame).
The instructions for the technique are: “Let whatever happens, happen. As soon as you are aware of an intention to control your attention, drop that intention. “The Do Nothing technique doesn’t involve your hand turning off yourself. It sets up a situation where nature will grow that hand, reach around and turn off the robot self for a brief period of time.” (Shinzen Young)
There is a learning process to this technique that takes time to get the hang of. I really look forward to practising Do Nothing again with all of you.