The art of doing nothing

Today's world is full of fury and noise. In this action packed lifestyle people are not only occupied, they are always preoccupied. More and more options mean that everyone is always engaged in some or the other activity. The effect of all this whirlwind activity has a negative impact on a person's physical and mental health. Spaces of emptiness are essential for the well being of the body and mind. Just as the body needs rest, the mind needs rest too, physically and mentally as well. When you sit silently, is your mind silent or does it run more speedily? With most people the mind does not cease its activity even when sitting silently. Zen monks are experts at stilling the mind. In this Zen meditation Osho explains 'Zazen' which means sitting silently doing nothing. "Zazen is a deep unoccupiedness - not doing anything outwardly, not doing anything inwardly. It is not even meditation because when you meditate you are making some sort of effort; you are trying to do something: chanting a mantra, remembering the divine, or even remembering yourself. But these efforts create ripples, these efforts create vibrations and your sitting becomes corrupted. Then your sitting is not innocent. Zazen means to sit, and just sit, nothing else. There is no doing on the part of the body, no doing on the part of the mind. It's a state of non-doing. That does not mean that you are fast asleep, because sleep is an activity. It does not mean that you are dead, because if you are dead you cannot just sit. Zazen simply means that you are tremendously alive, intensely alive, a fire of being, but not moving anywhere - a reservoir of energy in a deep awaiting. You are just waiting for something to happen, not even expecting, because expectation will again create a ripple of thought and the mind will start functioning. Everything is suspended. You breathe, and that's all that you do. But that is not a doing, because breathing goes on its own accord. You have not to do anything but just sit silently."

Amrit Sadhana