“I’m doing nothing.
Ask the water buffalo.”

Reflecting on “A Book of Hours”, quotes from Thomas Merton, I came across his idea of “non-doing”. He says:
“Hence it is said:
‘Heaven and earth do nothing
Yet there is nothing they do not do.’
Where is the man who can attain
To this non-doing?”

I believe I understand Merton’s idea of “non-doing”, entering into the Silence, the ‘now’ that cuts Time like a blade.

When I was younger and unemployed I used to answer the inevitable question of ‘what do you do’ with the answer: “nothing.” For I knew that people where not really asking what I do but what my employment was. Now I am retired from working for employment persons always think that I am not working.

A ‘working for a living’ friend and I are working on a nonviolent project together. Recently when I inquired about something he said he had not responded to me because he was “doing” so much. I know he meant his employment as a handyman. He has a lot of “jobs” going on. The person doing the wall in my garden keeps on postponing the work saying how he is doing, working on jobs for money, so much.

Most persons seem to doing so much these days and when it is for employment it is given priority over other kinds of work.

One of the things I like about home gardening is that it is not really considered working or doing something. It has a taste of “non-doing.”

Looking for a picture of “non-doing” I came across the Taoist idea of wu wei, or ‘non-doing’. On The Hannibal Blog where my picture comes from, “non-doing” is described as “not to interfere with the natural flow of things but instead to go with the flow, as though letting things happen and harmonizing yourself with them.”

I believe this is more or less the idea of “non-doing” that Merton is talking about and the kind of “non-doing” that I am attracted to. But I have learned over and over again that there is nothing you can do to obtain “non-doing.” This makes it difficult. “Going with the flow” or going with nature is not easy but certainly is rewarding.

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