Buddhist practice involves engaging in actions on a path to freedom and awakening.  Action, in other words, is key. Reading about Buddhism is not the same as taking up the practice.  If we learn about Buddhist practice but don’t change any of our behaviors, we won’t experience the benefits of the practice.  Unless we actually take up the activity of mindfulness, mindfulness practice will have no role in our lives. If we decide we want to meditate but fail to actually do it, we won’t experience the fruits of meditation.  Without acting on our best values, it would be as if we didn’t have those values at all. Buddhist practice is founded on the principle that our actions are consequential and we can choose actions that lead to greater peace, freedom, and compassion.

Despite this emphasis on action, Buddhism does put primary emphasis on two forms of non-doing: non-craving and non-clinging.  The Buddhist path of liberation aims at the cessation of these two mental actions because craving and clinging are the conditions for the arising of dukkha, the Buddhist word for suffering, stress, and distress.  When craving and clinging have ceased, not only does dukkha not occur, it is replaced by a deeply meaningful, timeless peace.  And when we are no longer involved with craving and clinging, the heart has lots of space for wisdom and compassion.

Although it might sound paradoxical, non-action is also an important kind of action on the Buddhist path.  Just as it’s important to understand which actions place us on the path of freedom, it is equally important to understand when non-action is called for. For some people this may be more difficult than learning to act—perhaps because it’s easier to believe we’re making a difference if we’re doing something.  This difficulty may be particularly acute when it comes to our inner life, where the habits of behaving, thinking, and believing are often so deeply embedded that not only are they difficult to stop, they can seem natural or innate—part of our “hardware”—so that we don’t even recognize them as activities we have any choice over.  A lifetime of doing, fixing, arranging, and controlling can be difficult to put to rest.

One of the foundational Buddhist practices of non-action involves refraining from acting on unethical impulses.  The five ethical precepts are the most obvious examples of this practice.  The precepts involve a commitment to not act on our intentions to harm others, steal, lie, engage in sexual misconduct, or become intoxicated.  Commitment to these precepts is not always easy to adhere to because unethical impulses and intentions can be powerful. When they are, the non-action required may be quite active, requiring lots of inner strength to support our commitment to refrain.

Forbearance and patience are also important though less appreciated practices of non-action. Human life is filled with situations that frustrate our preferences, destabilize our equanimity, and evoke our ire.  Because it is rarely beneficial to act—or react—when we are frustrated, unstable, or angry, practicing patience may be the best approach to avoid making a difficult situation worse.  Such non-action is called forbearance when we also have to tolerate discomfort.

As most people who meditate know, meditation takes sustained effort. But from one perspective at least, it also involves a lot of non-action.  With the body resting still, we are not engaged in the physical activities that characterize much of our lives.  Similarly, by keeping our attention in the present moment, the meditative mind is not actively and intentionally involved in most forms of daily mental activity such as thinking about the past, the future, or fantasies.  When we’re engaged in meditation, being preoccupied with expectations and goals and evaluating our progress are all counterproductive.  So is criticizing ourselves for how “well” or “unwell” we’re meditating. Assuming too much active responsibility for our meditation can derail the relaxing, unwinding, and opening that support meditation practice. Mindfulness practitioners also learn that “selfing” is not helpful.  Concerns with self-identity, self-justification, and self-aversion, are mental activities that meditators eventually learn to refrain from in favor of experiencing more peace.

People who practice meditation discover ever-subtler forms of non-action.  For example, they learn that picking up a thought and getting involved with it is a mental action that isn’t necessary and needn’t be automatic. If the thought is not picked up, it can be left alone to fade away on its own. With mindfulness, we can develop the ability to choose which thoughts to engage with and which to avoid.  In this way, non-action is an effective antidote for neuroses that result from being overly involved with thoughts.  For some people, giving up the usual habits of mental activity is the most important lesson they can learn in meditation, partly because of the relief it brings and partly because it allows them to discover beneficial aspects of their inner life that had been hidden by all the doing.

Rather than directly solving our personal problems, non-action and meditation can help us to step away from our preoccupation with our problems, and this change in emphasis can sometimes make space for new solutions to arise or for the problem itself to diminish on its own.  Some problems are better dissolved than solved. Some issues are seen more clearly when we aren’t ruminating about them.

But non-action isn’t always easy. It can require a lot of self-discipline and willpower when we’re in the grip of desires and fears. Not acting on addictive drives may be as difficult as it is beneficial.  It can be hard to resist the impulse to stay up late watching TV or surfing the internet, but when we do, we can get a good night’s sleep and wake up ready for the workday ahead.  For those who have strong cravings for addictive substances, the pull to indulge can be very powerful, but when they refrain, they may be able to hold on to a job or a marriage.

Even in more mundane situations, non-action has benefits. For people who are always quick to speak, sometimes at the expense of interrupting others, practicing non-action in conversation can be helpful and instructive.  This might be as simple as waiting to speak until others are clearly finished. Or it can involve allowing moments of silence.  Not acting on every impulse to speak is a way to respect others.  It is also a way to allow for greater mindfulness of what’s happening in a conversation.

In lives of constant doing, periods of non-activity can serve as important intervals of rest, recovery, and discovery.  When we’re perpetually busy we can easily lose touch with ourselves, how we’re feeling, and even our most important values. Not doing may be just the medicine for relieving stress or providing time to process unresolved feelings.  Letting go of any attempt to accomplish or do anything but instead simply looking out the window or drinking a cup of tea may give the mind and heart a chance to reveal something important that has been overlooked or which we have not yet thought about.  Non-action can be the seedbed for creativity and healing.

Non-doing is also a significant way of learning about ourselves.  As we attempt to stop our usual activities, we discover the impulses that make stopping so difficult. In this way we learn where we are attached, and we learn about the emotions, impulses, and beliefs that keep us caught up.  When we refrain from doing something we habitually do, we might get to see for the first time the cost the activity has had—sometimes over a lifetime.  Finally, it may be only when we have ceased being active that we can see that we have more choices in how to act.

In deep meditation practice a time comes when it is helpful to let go of all intentional mental activity, even of mindfulness, concentration, and any other ways we are “meditating.”  This can provide a profound sense of well being that is not dependent on getting what we want, avoiding what we don’t want, or any other efforts to “do” anything.  It is a sense of well being that loosens the grip of our attachments.

It is possible to become free of clinging—this is what the path of freedom is all about.  To find this path each person must find the right balance of action and non-action.

—Gil Fronsdal

by Andrea Fella

When we go on a residential retreat, we often hope that our meditation will result in a deepening of concentration: a quality of composure, collectedness, of settled attention.

But unfortunately, we can’t force concentration to happen! We can, however, support the conditions that allow it to arise. This simple fact has been really helpful for me to remember. In our meditation practice, we often bring along the cultural baggage of an “I’m going to do this” mentality, and sometimes that attitude can get in our way.

Concentration arises when awareness becomes continuous, whether continuous on a single experience like the breathing, or continuous on a flow of changing experience. We can’t force this continuity. We can, for short periods of time, forcefully hold our attention to experience, but this kind of attention usually results in brittle concentration that’s easily broken.

So a useful support for our practice is learning how to create a container that allows concentration to develop without being forced. This tends to result in a more stable concentration.

Relaxation is one of the important aspects of that container. Relaxation is actually one of the main supports for concentration! When I first started meditating, I thought that you had to force the mind to focus. The idea that one could relax to facilitate concentration did not penetrate my mind for quite a while. But relaxation is quite important.

Relaxation in meditation does not mean spacing out! The mind can be both relaxed and alert. Relaxation can take time. Different people need different amounts of time to allow the body and mind to relax in meditation. Relaxation of the body and relaxation of the mind are mutually supportive; when the body is relaxed, it’s much easier for the mind to relax.

We all need to find our own way to relax in meditation. For some people, starting with a relaxing body scan can be very helpful: consciously relaxing the muscles of the body in a systematic way. Once the body is relaxed, we see if we can relax the thinking mind. For others, meditating on ambient sounds can be helpful. Since we don’t control these sounds, turning our attention to them can sometimes allow the body and mind to relax very naturally.

Setting up a container of relaxed attention is an important framework for the meditation. Once you find a balance of relaxation and alertness, you can learn how to open this relaxed attention to experience: Either directing attention to a particular experience like the breathing, or becoming aware of a flow of experience: of seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, touching, and emotions and thoughts.

When we can learn how to attend to our experience and not lose the relaxation, the mind becomes malleable, and we can skillfully choose to direct the attention to support a deepening of concentration. At other times, we can get out of our own way, and allow the meditation to take its own course very naturally.

I encourage you to take the time to explore what it means for you to have a relaxed attention: first of all to learn simply how to relax the body and mind, and then to learn what it means to apply this relaxation to an alert attending to your experience.

Compassion is inextricably linked to the Buddhist practice of liberation. It can be the motivation for this practice as well as the result.  As one’s inner freedom grows, one’s capacity for compassion increases; as one’s compassion increases, so does the importance of freedom. Liberation supports compassion and compassion supports liberation. They both benefit when they go hand in hand.

Compassion is a form of empathy and care that wishes for the alleviation of someone’s suffering. Known as karuna in Buddhism, this compassion is sometimes referred to as the “jewel in the lotus.” The lotus symbolizes the heart or mind that, with practice, blossoms into freedom, and the jewel represents the compassion appearing in the center of this blossom. The feeling of unfettered compassion is one of the most beautiful feelings a person can experience, providing valuable meaning and purpose to any human life.  Its presence is sometimes celebrated in Buddhism as an inner wealth and source of happiness.

Given its importance, Buddhism doesn’t leave the manifestation of compassion to chance. We don’t have to passively accept how often and how strongly we happen to experience it. Instead, it’s possible to actively develop our feelings of compassion and remove the obstacles for our feeling compassionate.

Because people sometimes confuse compassion with feelings of distress, it is helpful to clearly distinguish these two. Compassion doesn’t make us victims of suffering, whereas feeling distress on another’s behalf often does.  Learning how to see the suffering in the world without taking it on personally is very important; when we take it personally it is easy to become depressed or burdened.  We can avoid taking it as a personal burden or obligation if we learn to feel empathy without it touching our own fears, attachments, and perhaps unresolved grief.

This means that to feel greater compassion for others we need to understand our own suffering. Mindfulness practice is a great help in this.  With mindfulness, we can better see our suffering, its roots within us and the way to freedom from suffering; we can begin to cultivate both equanimity toward our suffering and release from its causes.

In this regard, it’s helpful to appreciate the great value in staying present, open, and mindful of suffering, both our own and that of others. We often need to give ourselves time to process difficult events and experiences and to let difficult emotions move through us.  When immediate action is not required, staying mindful of suffering doesn’t necessarily require a lot of wisdom or special techniques. It mostly takes patience and perseverance.  Relaxed mindfulness of our own suffering increases our ability to feel empathy for others’ difficulty and pain. It gives time for understanding and letting go to occur.  By practicing to be free of habitual reactivity, we take the time to see and feel more deeply what is happening.  This allows empathy to operate and for deeper responses to arise from within.  In this way, compassion is evoked rather than intentionally created.

Some people are reluctant to actively cultivate compassion because they worry that it will be insincerely or artificially contrived. Others fear that it will make them sentimentally naive or prevent them from seeing others clearly or realistically—perhaps out of concern they will be taken advantage of if they are compassionate to others.  Because efforts to be compassionate can be misguided, these concerns are worth keeping in mind.  However, as there are healthy ways to increase our compassion, the concerns don’t have to inhibit our efforts to do so.

One effective way of developing compassion is creating conditions that make it more likely to occur. That is, rather than directly making ourselves more compassionate, we can engage in activities that make it more likely to appear naturally.

A condition for compassion is a sense of safety.  It is easier to feel compassionate if we feel safe and very difficult when we don’t.  Therefore, to develop a confident and compassionate life, it can be helpful to find appropriate ways to feel safe.  Locking ourselves in our home may feel secure, but it’s not conducive to caring more about others. Learning how to be safe while in the world is more useful.  So is using mindfulness practice to address some of the anxieties and self-preoccupations that make us more likely to feel threatened.

It is important not to feel obligated to be compassionate as this often leads to self-criticism and stress that interferes with the arising of a natural compassion. Buddhism doesn’t require us to feel empathy and care for others. It does say, however, that we have the capacity to be compassionate and that doing so is a wonderful asset to ourselves, to others, and to the practice of freedom. The focus can be on how compassion enriches us, not depletes us.

Some people are hesitant to cultivate compassion because they worry they will have to give up too much of themselves as they help others.  Or they fear they will have to spend time with people they feel uncomfortable with. By knowing we are not obligated to be compassionate it may be easier for us to use our best wisdom and common sense to understand when acting on compassion is appropriate and when it is not.

Having confidence in our skill to respond to others’ suffering can also make it easier to feel compassion.  If we feel helpless, too uncomfortable, or even threatened by the troubles others are facing, awareness of their suffering may add to a sense of personal threat.  Developing skill has a lot to do with slow and patient training in such things as mindfulness, concentration, and letting go.

A way of strengthening compassion is to understand and then release what prevents it from arising.  For example, tension and stress limit compassion. When we’re stressed, we’re usually too preoccupied for empathy to operate. However, when we’re relaxed, our capacity for empathy increases. People who cultivate deep states of calm often find it naturally opens their hearts to great capacities of compassion and love.

Selfishness and self-preoccupation also obstruct compassion by blocking the attention and sensitivity that is needed for compassion to arise.  One benefit of letting go of selfishness is that compassion arises more easily.

We can also increase the amount of compassion we feel in our lives by setting the intention to do so. This can be quite specific, such as intending to be compassionate in a particular situation or toward a particular person—or it can be more general, as intending to be compassionate for this day or this week. When we consciously set this intention, we’re more likely to be reminded of and to think in terms of compassion. We will also notice compassionate thoughts and impulses that occur but which may otherwise be overshadowed by different desires and concerns.

Valuing compassion when it does appear can also strengthen it and make it more apt to arise in the future. We might consider and appreciate the benefits it can bring others as well as ourselves. Knowing the benefits can bring a sense happiness that in turn can make compassion more appealing.  Compassion can be more appealing when we have seen how it can be a source of happiness and how it can be intimately connected with our inner freedom.  Compassion for others can be a relief when we have spent too long pre-occupied with ourselves.

Another supportive condition is to deliberately reflect on compassion, perhaps stimulated by regularly reading and talking to others about it.  Whatever we think about regularly can become an inclination.  If we repeatedly think about love, kindness and caring for others, thoughts related to compassion are likely to appear more often.

Spending time with people who are compassionate can also help us.  The people we see frequently often have an influence on us. Seeing compassion in others can inspire it in ourselves.

Finally, understanding how compassion is a form of love helps us recognize what a jewel it truly is. When it arises from inner freedom it is then connected to other beautiful capacities of our hearts. It can appear together with well-being, calm, clarity, and peace.

There is, in fact, a great deal we can do to make compassion a more central part of our lives. As compassion grows, our self-centeredness and clinging decrease, and liberation becomes easier. As we become freer, compassion becomes more readily available.  To let compassion and liberation support each other is one of the most beautiful ways of training in the Buddhist path.  It can be our gift to the world.

—Gil Fronsdal