{"id":536,"date":"2011-09-15T16:01:30","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T22:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/?p=536"},"modified":"2011-09-15T18:19:47","modified_gmt":"2011-09-16T00:19:47","slug":"not-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/archives\/536","title":{"rendered":"Not Doing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking of simple meditations (see all the previous ones I’ve posted) this one is about as simple as it gets. When practiced over a long time, however, it is in the running for being the most profound.<\/p>\n

First, situate yourself in nature, not in a garden shaped by human thought, but in a place of natural beauty and salka<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, don’t do.<\/p>\n

Ok, so that requires a little explanation. What we normally ‘do’ is to be aware of the products of our mind. Our mind is continually interpreting what is going on around us, categorizing and giving meaning to what we perceive; and thinking about what is going on or drifting off to think about other places and other times. Attending to the mind’s interpretation of reality is the continuous ‘doing’ of our lives.<\/p>\n

During this meditation don’t do that. Instead move your consciousness away from the products of your mind (perceptions, emotions, and thoughts) and be aware of your consciousness itself. Let go of thought, become still and alert, and feel your own presence, become your own consciousness.<\/p>\n

I said it was simple, I didn’t say it was easy. If at the beginning you can accomplish this only for a few seconds off and on during the time you spend meditating that is still great, it is an expansion of your awareness of the totality of who you are. As with all the meditations, the value of this is determined by the effect it has on you. If you like it, or are intrigued, then continue playing with it, if not, then don’t.<\/p>\n

I have a lot I would like to share about this meditation, including the traditions in which I have encountered it, some ideas about how to enter the state of ‘not doing’, the implication of this meditation on our experience of the world, and the benefits of doing this outdoors in Nature, in salka. I kept putting that additional information into this post and taking it back out again. I have decided to simply present the meditation on its own, and follow it up, if I can, with all the rest I would like to share in a subsequent post.<\/p>\n

I first ran into the essence of this meditation in the early writings of Carlos Castaneda, then it was brought back into my life in my interactions with don Americo Yabar<\/a>, and more recently I have gained much in its practice thanks to Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nShare... <\/span>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking of simple meditations (see all the previous ones I’ve posted) this one is about as simple as it gets. When practiced over a long time, however, it is in the running for being the most profound. First, situate yourself in nature, not in a garden shaped by human thought, but in a place of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meditations","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":539,"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions\/539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salkawind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}