Schedule time to do nothing, and I mean nothing.
Not reading,
Not playing with the phone,
Not watching television,
Not engaging with some sort of sport,
Not thinking obsessively in the mind.
Just do nothing.
According to Zen Buddhism, there are “three dignities of man”, better “three types of Za Zen”:
- Lying Zen
- Sitting Zen
- Walking Zen
So if you have to “do something”, choose one of these.
In the modality of the Enneagram, living as a Type 3: Achiever in North America, is akin to being an alcoholic trapped in a liquor store. Superficially, as humans we emigrate from our native locality in search of more supportive environments that kindle our natural talents: ambition, romanticism, enthusiasm, et cetera.
However, as I discovered in my experiences living in San Francisco, where idealism promises fruits from concentration of ambition, for example, reality usually produces the opposite. Places with hyper concentration leave human beings off balance due to too much self-similarity. In the world of the Type 3, this creates a persistent anxiety in competition with all others “doing”, therefore we must do as well.
Truly, the mind promises that if we do more, we will get further ahead, and the getting further ahead, really means piling higher the list of justifications and evidence to our inner judge of why we deserve to exist at all. Therefore, the thought of doing nothing appears, at first glance, akin to admitting guilt before the jury as to our inadequacy as a human being – a shame we fear more than death sometimes.
But try it sometime, you might, if you allow yourself to be lead, discover something new you’ve not seen before: a curious alley way leading to a mural, a secluded Japanese Ramen restaurant, or maybe nothing. What you might feel, however, is that slow sense of consciousness, inward peace maybe, that is always there but is drowned out by the stupidity of aimless thought.