Adyashanti reframes meditation as the art of not-doing — allowing everything to be exactly as it is — and argues that all genuine spiritual practice converges on the same move: letting go of the separate self.
Transcript
I want to speak a few minutes about meditation itself. It's I learned really quickly when I started to to teach that one of the most confusing subjects for a lot of people was meditation. A lot of people do it in spiritual circles. Um, but I found that a lot of people had a fundamental misunderstanding about what it was all about, about why they were doing it and exactly how how to go about doing it in um in an authentic way or we could say a spiritually useful way, a way that is useful in terms of awakening, spiritual awakening to your true nature. And really the art of of meditation is the same as the art of spirituality in general which is the art of meditation and spirituality in general is the art of letting go of self. That's basically what it is. It's the art of letting go of self. The paradox is you let go of self so that you realize self. But you got to get let go of your self idea to realize your true nature. And so meditation really in its true sense, in its most simple and sublime sense, is the art of letting go of self. And so when we meditate, it's simply the art of let letting everything be as it is. Or in other words, another way of stating allowing everything to be as it is is do nothing in response to whatever happens while you're sitting there meditating. When your mind wonders what to do, what do I do? The question always arises in in response to something, right? What do I do about my thinking? What do I do about this feeling? What do I do about something? Right? So the question itself what do I do is always in relationship to some experience and the answer is simple. What do I do? The answer is do nothing. So what do I do about my thinking? Do nothing. What do I do about this particular feeling? Do nothing about it. What do I do about a moment of being lost in uh ideas of yesterday's breakfast? Do nothing. Do absolutely nothing about it. And this is although it sounds simple, you know, the most simple things actually include are the most inclusive and the most farreaching. So when we actually do nothing in response to the to the self's the little self always wanting to do something about everything that's what the little self does. It always wants to do something about everything whether it's somebody else or this or that. But in just for the moment, I'll broaden the scope of this in a few minutes, but for the moment, just in terms of meditation, this the little self, which is wanting to do something in response to whatever one's experience is, meditation is the art of disengaging that self, that little self. So the little self as as I've mentioned several times already is always wanting to do something. So how do you disengage that little self? Do nothing. Now, when you're actually doing it, rather than having a a concept in your head of doing nothing, when you're actually doing it, which means when you're actually sitting in stillness and doing nothing in response to everything that could be happening, every experience you could have, every thought you could have, every little desire that runs through your head, what do you do about it? you do nothing. It's it's like giving the little self a putting it on a fast. A a very it's it's a it's a few minutes of fasting from yourself. Just always wanting to do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. So a very simple and an immediate access to what's beyond the little self, the imaginary self, is to not fall prey to all of its effort to do something in terms of meditation. So next time you're sitting and if your mind says has any question about what do I do about anything a thought a feeling a memory an experience it could be a very powerful experience could be absolutely wonderful and blissful it could be absolutely terrifying and frightening it could be boredom it could be anything and when the little self thinks to itself what do I do the answer is nothing. And when you actually do nothing in response to all these inward movements, the imaginary self becomes disengaged. It's it has nothing to do because it needs to be doing something to survive. It must be in motion. And it must be constantly having another activity to do having something to solve, something to focus on, but do nothing, which is, as I said in the beginning, it's a just another way of saying allow everything to be as it is. I think do nothing is the extreme form of allow everything to be as it is. >> [laughter] >> They mean the same thing, but I think do nothing maybe gets to the point a little quicker. You know, it's a little little harder to have wiggle room in do nothing, you know. And when one actually does nothing in meditation, when one actually does nothing, you find that there's this incredibly vivid and awake state of being, state of awareness is naturally there. If you're actually doing nothing, if the little self is not engaged, then there is this very very bright sense of being awake. Unless of course you've had a long day and you're a little tired, in which case you may be tired and bright. Of course, by now you can probably guess what I'd say if someone says, "What do I do if I'm tired?" Do nothing and then get some sleep afterwards. [laughter] So, this seems like a very simple thing, very simple thing to say, but when you actually look into it, it's a process of discovery in other words, right? When you're sitting and you're actually doing nothing because what you find from most human beings they find initially when you seek to do nothing the first thing you see is how your little self is constantly looking for something to do. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And the little self imagines doing nothing as a very sort of static dead hazy lazy state. That's the only way it can even imagine doing nothing. As if doing nothing was like, you know, like having sitting on the couch eating Cheetos or something, you know, on a sat Sunday morning and whatever you do to do nothing. a for in other words some form of not paying attention some form of not being fully conscious. But once you really if you get very deep into it you see that all forms of not being fully conscious are at some level the self the little self is doing something. Because when the little self is not doing anything then awareness remains as itself. There is nothing disturbing. There is nothing distorting. There's ne nothing interfering with what is beyond the self.