Am I Supposed To Be Present/aware During "do Nothing?"

[Eonn]

Hey! I started meditating a few weeks ago and have been doing an hour of "Do Nothing." In Leo's video he says to let go of control of your thoughts and control of your focus. But when I let go my focus I am completely identified with my mind for the entire meditation and it feels more like day dreaming. I end up with no idea what's going on in my body and it has yet to help me be present or mindful throughout the day. So am I supposed to be controlling my focus without controlling my thoughts or am I supposed to be controlling nothing and getting swept away in my thoughts until one day it calms down?

This is the only meditation technique I've done, I'm considering adding 20 minutes of mindfullness meditation on the side.

 

Thanks!

[Guest username]

It's basically just sitting and being aware; its benefit is that it's about the most relaxed form of meditation you'll get. But it's not the same as doing nothing without the awareness, otherwise, that'd just be daydreaming.

[Eonn]

But trying to be aware and trying to stay in the present moment is doing something! In Leo's video he says he lets his mind do literally whatever it wants to do and lets go of his focus. He says to let go of the need to stop the monkey mind. Yet other posts say to be present and aware. But my mind takes me far away from the present moment and into daydreams. 

I have to be misunderstanding something here. How can I let go of my focus and let my mind do it's thing while, at the exact same time, I'm trying to be present and aware? The past three weeks have been me getting completely absorbed in thought, have I been wasting all that time?

 

Gonna go do my hour of meditation now and experiment with it.

Edited November 12, 2017 by Eonn

[Vitamine Water]

@Eonn The goal of this technique is to let go of control. Don't try to be as aware or present as you can, that's a different meditation technique in itself. Let your mind get absorbed in thought, that's perfectly fine. Moments when you realize "hey, I was just in a thought!" are very good to have. Then you became aware. 

It's also normal to feel useless and pointless after this type of meditation. But that's the whole point: do nothing. The mind loves to "do" things. Focus on this, focus on that, be this, be that. Now your letting this control go and as a result, you're silencing your mind. 

Tip: Keep at it. You're already making more progress than you think. 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2017 by Vitamine Water

[DoubleYou]

@username I think the point of 'do nothing' meditation is to even allow that daydreaming. A lot of times meditation becomes about resisting thought from happening. Do nothing is the exact opposite of that. Just let it go where it wants to go.

What I've noticed is that after about 30 minutes of mind chatter I usually become calmer and it starts to slowly turn into a regular meditation. Yet approached from an angle of total allowance. 

[Guest username]

@DoubleYou Hmm, in that case maybe I've been doing something else when I thought I was doing, DN, lol

That makes sense though, I've done a lot of Do Nothing as well, I just didn't know what was the Do Nothing

[Zephyr]

You're probably doing it while sleeping. You need to be awake while doing it. 

[Eonn]

Thank you @Vitamine Water! I just got back from my hour. I've noticed it's different depending on when and where I do it. If I do it in chair at night while tired I almost pass out. If I do it in the afternoon outside looking at the lake I'm more awake and calm. The daydreaming happens a lot but I do have those moments where I'm just like wow...I was totally lost. Followed by just a couple seconds of stillness. Then I seem to be kind of aware (I don't know what awareness is to be honest) of my thoughts before I sink into them again. That's usually the kind of cycle I go through. I do feel relaxed for a while after and sometimes I can feel emotions bubbling up a little, but never anything too intense and I've yet to have any sort of breakdown or extreme release.

 

What meditations would you recommend for being as present as possible? I try to practice mindfulness throughout my day (admittedly I'm distracted most the time) but I never sit down and make being present my full intent. It would be great to schedule my meditation and have one hour in the morning and one in the evening, for different things. Gotta make sure my one hour sticks first though! There's been a few days where I really don't want to do it and end up forcing myself to take that hour out of my sleep time.

[Gabriel Antonio]

Hi,

I faced a similar problem a few months ago, when I was big in the do nothing. The key point is to focus on being.

Check out this topic:

Hahaha, I have gotten so much better ever since that post. Psychedelics helped me a lot. But, remember, it is perfectly fine if you are thinking random shit as long as you are connected to being. Always make sure that your whole body is soft and at the same time firm.

Nowadays, I have cut my meditation habit completely because I totally overdid it. After tripping on ayahuasca, I feel like I can connect to being whenever I decide to. Leo mentioned this somewhere. He said something like, "Ok. Now I am going to elevate my consciousness." And all of a sudden, you begin to feel like you are in your safety spot, the place where you can recover you energy, like in those animes like Dragon Ball, you know? Haha...

Things can get better much quicker than you think. A strong community of practice is also very helpful.

[Nahm]

3 hours ago, Eonn said:

But trying to be aware and trying to stay in the present moment is doing something! In Leo's video he says he lets his mind do literally whatever it wants to do and lets go of his focus. He says to let go of the need to stop the monkey mind. Yet other posts say to be present and aware. But my mind takes me far away from the present moment and into daydreams. 

I have to be misunderstanding something here. How can I let go of my focus and let my mind do it's thing while, at the exact same time, I'm trying to be present and aware? The past three weeks have been me getting completely absorbed in thought, have I been wasting all that time?

 

Gonna go do my hour of meditation now and experiment with it.

Be aware of the mind. Observe it’s inner workings. Study it. Just awareness. 

[Leo Gura]

@Eonn The instruction I give myself for do-nothing is: let go of all control and just observe what is happening.

The "just observe" is awareness. Awareness DOES NOT REQUIRE DOING. You can be aware even inside a flurry of monkey chatter. This is a subtle point, but important.

As a general rule of thumb: if you're not being aware amidst a meditation session, you're not doing meditation, you're doing something else. Awareness is THE KEY.

An alternative instruction might be: BE MAX AWARE. Do anything you want, but be max aware.

[Dodo]

4 hours ago, Eonn said:

But trying to be aware and trying to stay in the present moment is doing something! In Leo's video he says he lets his mind do literally whatever it wants to do and lets go of his focus. He says to let go of the need to stop the monkey mind. Yet other posts say to be present and aware. But my mind takes me far away from the present moment and into daydreams. 

I have to be misunderstanding something here. How can I let go of my focus and let my mind do it's thing while, at the exact same time, I'm trying to be present and aware? The past three weeks have been me getting completely absorbed in thought, have I been wasting all that time?

 

Gonna go do my hour of meditation now and experiment with it.

Can you stop being aware? I dare you. It's like telling the Sun - don't shine.

[Anirban657]

Try to keep your body and head and eyes still. Make sure to focus out. And then let go and be aware. 

Even be aware of your not being able to be aware.

[elias]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Awareness is THE KEY.

An alternative instruction might be: BE MAX AWARE. Do anything you want, but be max aware.

great advice. thanks for helping and point to

[Blissout]

It's important to stress that you should ignore everything else for favor awareness watching awareness, or the I-feeling/sense.

Mind shouldn't go towards objects, if it does just return to awareness just watching it self.

[Vitamine Water]

8 hours ago, Eonn said:

Thank you @Vitamine Water! I just got back from my hour. I've noticed it's different depending on when and where I do it. If I do it in chair at night while tired I almost pass out. If I do it in the afternoon outside looking at the lake I'm more awake and calm. The daydreaming happens a lot but I do have those moments where I'm just like wow...I was totally lost. Followed by just a couple seconds of stillness. Then I seem to be kind of aware (I don't know what awareness is to be honest) of my thoughts before I sink into them again. That's usually the kind of cycle I go through. I do feel relaxed for a while after and sometimes I can feel emotions bubbling up a little, but never anything too intense and I've yet to have any sort of breakdown or extreme release.

 

What meditations would you recommend for being as present as possible? I try to practice mindfulness throughout my day (admittedly I'm distracted most the time) but I never sit down and make being present my full intent. It would be great to schedule my meditation and have one hour in the morning and one in the evening, for different things. Gotta make sure my one hour sticks first though! There's been a few days where I really don't want to do it and end up forcing myself to take that hour out of my sleep time.

Those moments between thoughts are KEY, as @Leo Gura mentioned. You become the observer, you become aware(ness). You basically "wake up" for a sec.

With practice, you'll have more of these moments and the stilness and relaxation expands. When you have this "aha I was totally lost" moments, try not to judge yourself. Just notice the experience of being aware.

When you get more familiar with this feeling, you can explore it more deeply: what is this feeling of being aware? What does this silence mean? Who is observing my thoughts? But then again, this is called self enquiry, not "do nothing" 

There are many great techniques to expand your awareness. I used to put my focus on breath during meditation. Now I focus on the experience of being aware (or silence) as much as I can. Mindfulness meditation is also nice, I highly recommend this one:

Happy sitting!

Edited November 12, 2017 by Vitamine Water

[Azrael]

13 hours ago, Eonn said:

So am I supposed to be controlling my focus without controlling my thoughts or am I supposed to be controlling nothing and getting swept away in my thoughts until one day it calms down?

"Do Nothing" isn't really a meditation in the typical understanding of mediation, it's more like an anti-meditation that leads you to the same result: awakening. Its like this:

When we look at your normal state of being (unintegrated egoic conciousness) you are like a hurricane. Meditation is supposed to release this hurricane to the point where only calm air is left over. With a typical meditation like mindfulness you try to manipulate and train your hurricane so that he is able to release its power by skill. You kinda like show him "how to release it".

With "Do Nothing" you simply do nothing and let the hurricane figure it out by himself how to release it, you trust in the fact that as long as you don't fuck with the hurricane he'll realese himself at a point in time. So it's a conscious decision "to give up", "to not manipulate" and "to let it rest" so that it can return to its normal state.

As shown in many cases both ways work although they are completely different. I've gone totally with the "Do Nothing" approach and can report that it works, a 100%. Also, both approaches are symptoms or let's say techniques of two very different kinds of schools of awakening. Maybe you wanna read up about the background and get educated on the matter, it's quite interesting.

[bazera]

On 11/12/2017 at 8:58 AM, Leo Gura said:

@Eonn The instruction I give myself for do-nothing is: let go of all control and just observe what is happening.

The "just observe" is awareness. Awareness DOES NOT REQUIRE DOING. You can be aware even inside a flurry of monkey chatter. This is a subtle point, but important.

As a general rule of thumb: if you're not being aware amidst a meditation session, you're not doing meditation, you're doing something else. Awareness is THE KEY.

An alternative instruction might be: BE MAX AWARE. Do anything you want, but be max aware.

In your meditation for beginner's video you said that even if you sit for 20 minutes and think about sex or something, you can consider that as meditation because what counts as meditation is that you sat down and had an intention to be aware. You also said that it's not in our control to be aware or not. 

Now you say that if you are not being aware, you are not meditating. 

Isn't there a contradiction? 

Edited November 14, 2017 by bazera

[Ether]

@bazera He meant, if you are trying to be aware and thinking about sex thats a meditation

 

[Eonn]

Thanks for the help guys, really helped to clarify things!