One thing that sometimes confuses meditators is the balance between non-doing and doing.
It often can seem like meditation is a practice that involves letting go and letting things just be as they are. For example, some phrases that one often hears in meditation and mindfulness materials and circles include:
- Non-reactivity, non-doing, non-interfering, non-choosing
- Just watching and observing
- It’s all perfect, just as it is
- Accept whatever arises; allow and open to whatever is there
- We are not seeking any particular experience or result
When I lead meditations, I often say things like, “Any breath is as good as any other for us to concentrate on”, or “Whatever your body is feeling right now is the perfect thing for you to be feeling.” When we practice mindfulness, we generally trust that the simple act of mindful awareness is enough for positive transformation – there is nothing more for us to do. As people sometimes say, “We are putting a car into neutral, and it will eventually coast to a stop all on its own”.
And yet, at the same time, when we meditate, it also often seems like we are “doing something”. At the very least, obviously, we are choosing to sit and meditate instead of, say, reading a book or watching TV. Meditation can also often feel like difficult, intentional work, as we sit still without moving, count breaths and vocalize labels, and repeatedly bring our attention back to a chosen meditation object after it has wandered elsewhere.
Many people are surprised to learn that traditional meditation guidance texts from over the centuries have used words that translate into English as “effort”, “determination”, “exertion”, “diligence”, “ardency”, “zeal”, “energy”, “endeavor”, “goal”, “purpose”, “direction”, “destination”, “intention”, and “vigor”. Wrestling with our psychological habits, distortions, wounds, and inner frictions often takes persistence. There are reasons why meditation is often described as a “practice” or a “training”.
As our meditation practice deepens, we find over time is that it is a balance between being and doing, acceptance and effort. With experience, we find ourselves able to find a balance between getting too excited, worked up, and tight, on the one hand, and too dull, drowsy, and lax on the other.
My main teacher, Shinzen Young, once said,
There’s a complimentarity between making effort in meditation and letting go. Both are important sides of the practice, and the meditative path arises in the interplay of the two. I know that questions about this are a big thing that people get tripped out on, and they ask, “Am I doing it right?” But we learn that we can never fully pin down the path exactly, and that there are no absolutes in meditation. We just have to feel our way through, and develop our own sense of it. Most people have to learn to meditate the way a baby learns to walk – the baby falls to the right, falls to the left, and gradually gets its equilibrium. Just like that, we just have to, over time, develop our own “feel” for what’s right in meditation. We learn to find a moment-by-moment balance between being active and passive, between bearing down and easing up.
There is a famous ancient Buddhist parable that says that effort and non-effort in meditation is like a tuning peg of a stringed instrument (a guitar, violin, cello, lute, etc) – sometimes it requires tightening up, and sometimes it requires loosening, to get it to the sweet spot where it sounds perfect.