Not-Doing
Something I have always been interested in are Not-Doings. Carlos and others have mentioned a few specific examples of not-doings in their books and lectures. Things such as tying your shoes from the opposite direction, walking backwards, acting like a barking dog when someone knocks at your door, or acting like an answering machine when someone calls you.
I believe some not doings can be for specific purposes such as la Gorda stuffing a sponge in her mouth to avoid eating. Also in the Eagle’s Gift, Carlos mentions that Silvio Manuel gave him some not-doings that involved being buried and harnessed. And others can be for no other purpose than to create cognative dissonance, such as don Juan having Carlos draw concentric circles in the dirt circling his house.
I know that not-doings generally can be of a very personal nature. But I’d really like to know if anyone out there would feel like mentioning some not-doings that they’ve come accross that may be of interest to others.
D5 Creation
Sometimes i try to do things with my left hand,im righty.But there are other ways also.At the bus station when i wait for a bus i start to act like a crazy asking everyone seriously if bus will come at the time.
magical passes are the greatest not doings of all
Stalking is the best not-doing for me. I can’t get used to awareness enough for it to transform into doing, at least not yet.
yes, I find stalking, controlled-folly something that I’m good at, but I am horrible at dreaming.. I suppose I haven’t utilized all the intent I could or as someone else mentioned internal silence.. I DO spend most of my time talking to myself.. lately mostly just about Carlos’ experiences with his benefactors and his party….
But like the old seers its choosing the proper internal dialogue.. (in certain cases) but I find that these teachings take up a lot of space in my ‘inventory’ … like .. I dunno.. Its not knowing yet… and I have a horribly time shifting my awareness to ‘heightened’ awareness…
Don Juan said that not-doing was only for very strong warriors and up to this point it has been difficult for me to do serious not-doings. I am a stalker and so I have tried to incorporate the not-doings that are possible for me at this time into my stalking behavior. things such as digging a hole and refusing payment, and while digging it, remaining detached and focused on the act and that alone. The recapitulation is considered a not-doing and I am on the cusp of seriously begginning it. once that energy is free, i believe it will enable me to take up not-doing with an unbending intent.
My not-doings before I read the books were always taking some leaves off trees and as I walked dropping them casually… although apologizing to the tree for being rude.. a contradiction of sorts.. but something I did…
Not a serious not-doing (are there serious and not so serious not-doings?:)) just came to me. Let’s write I as i. Why on earth are we always writing I as a capital letter? Self-importance?
It doesn’t even matter that much, what matters is that it’s a habit tough to pay attention to and break after many years.
i completely agree… but then again sometimes, capitalizing the I can be a not-doing as well :blink:
Isn’t that the whole point of not-doing… To have a moment of choice every time, instead of just writing I or i automatically.
not doing is soo good! is not serious by definition. it needs fantasy and will, every time we act differently we’ re perfoming it, it helps entering in heightened awareness, of course depending on our dispositions, stalking the self is the not doing of the self; what Don Juan said is also true, is not something that anyone could easily do 😛
Ok, then what is not-doing per se? Doing habitual things another way, doing mindless things (like wiping the floor on the same spot), tricks with vision… All of that helps to gain more awareness and therefore help us choose instead of being automatic. But how exactly does it help to enter heightened awareness (aka left side)? i always thought that the left side awakens in dreaming, and the right side is what is active daily and thus in stalking (in 1st attention).
walking with your eyes crossed, according to Don Juan, overloads the tonal. I’ve tried it occasionally and it does take complete mental focus. what i want to know is, would the mental focus needed to do a not-doing, like say, walking backwards, be considered inner silence?
p.s. a not serious- not-doing, in my estimation, would be not- wiping your ass in the morning :unsure:
I’d say its CLOSER to inner-silence… since it curves your inner-dialogue and makes it specifically aware of whats going on “outside”
some of my not-doings before even knowing they were not-doings are:
Pulling dried clusters of wheat grains and randomly dropping them as I walk.. or doing the same with leaves…
answering people back with what they just said, only twisting it around.
Like, … “What do you want for dinner” …. “What does dinner want for you” … absolutely useless…
I can’t think of any other ones off the top of my head… but those are two I utilize often..
In my opinion a not-doing is doing something where you don’t quite take yourself or others 100% serious… theres no reason or goal for the action, other than to just perform the action…. You could never tell anyone how it helps you or benefits you in any way particularly…
in a way, it gets your mind off of your daily NORMAL thoughts.. and makes them interact with new concepts and ideas….
in other words, your mind creates reason and logic for the actions, that you know is a horrible reason and incorrect… the not-doing is like new material for the pattern making machine… it will create an order out of the chaos that you have observed.
It was a joke on my part to ask if not-doings can be serious and not serious.
As for effects, i think there are two types of not-doings. First one is doing habitual things another way, which helps to be more aware. Doing new things not included, only habitual things done another way. That’s why what DrakeWan wrote about isn’t not-doing, it’s a new doing: ‘Pulling dried clusters of wheat grains and randomly dropping them as I walk.. or doing the same with leaves…’ You don’t usually drop anything as you
walk. Or this: ‘answering people back with what they just said, only twisting it around’ A new doing, too. Not answering could be a not-doing.
The second type is concentration on things usually unnoticed – shadows, etc; gazing, and other tricks (like tonal overload). Stops the inner dialogue and builds inner silence.
well its good to see that, it made it some-what clearer to me what it is.. its somewhat a method of stalking the self then.. because it’s catching yourself doing a ritualistic thing and doing something else….
but why would don juan get carlos to arrange fire-wood in funny ways? .. over and over.. its a new doing aswell..
I’ll give an example and get your response I hope..
Say for instance I was working with another person, and they asked me to ‘throw a nail in it’ … talking about nailing a piece of wood together…. would it be a not doing to actually throw the nail.. ? .. instead of doing what one would normally do.. ?
would it be a not doing to actually throw the nail.. ? .. instead of doing what one would normally do.. ?
What do you normally do when you’re asked to throw the nail? If you always refuse and this time you agree, it won’t be not-doing of throwing the nail (coz you didn’t break any habitual pattern of throwing it). It could be not-doing of saying no, but that makes no sense. You don’t say no to all requests in the world.
Let’s say that if you usually walk very quickly, a not-doing would be to walk slowly. If you usually sit with your legs crossed, a not-doing would be not crossing them. If you usually hold the receiver with your left hand, use the right one. Things like that.
but why would don juan get carlos to arrange fire-wood in funny ways? .. over and over.. its a new doing aswell..
It is, but it’s for another purpose. Let me quote from the fourth book:
…”a teacher must teach his apprentice another possibility, which is even more subtle: the possibility of acting without believing, without expecting rewards ââ?¬â? acting just for the hell of it.
…He then reminded me of all the nonsensical joking tasks that he used to give me every time I had been at his house. Absurd chores such as arranging firewood in patterns, encircling his house with an unbroken chain of concentric circles drawn in the dirt with my finger, sweeping debris from one place to another, and so forth. The tasks also included acts that I had to perform by myself at home, such as wearing a black cap, or tying my left shoe first, or fastening my belt from right to left.
…I realized that by making me perform senseless routines he had indeed implanted in me the idea of acting without really expecting anything in return.
So firefox your saying that not-doing can be broken down into 2 catagories.
1. Actions that primarly create “cognative dissanance”.
2. Actions that primarly foster “inner silence”.
It seems so. One category is about automatisms, the other about how you perceive things. They feel differently, too, the second category of not-doing puts me in a trance state of sorts and makes me feel things very alike those that we feel when falling asleep, etc. The first category never influences me like that.
What do you think? How is it for you?
All I have been doing over the past year is stalking. All my not-doings have been in the context of changing roles and indentities. I was homeless for about 4mo and pretty much everything I did then was a not-doing ie; walking around dirty, sleeping on the beach, your basically an outcast.
Here’s a great interview with Taisha Abelar, where she discusses stalking, and mentions that she too played a homeless beggar for a while:
[url=http://www.sustainedaction.org/_nagualist/_NNL3/Taisha%20Abelar%20in%20Menlo%20Park%20Jan%207%201994.htm]http://www.sustainedaction.org/_nagualist/…%207%201994.htm[/url]
Thank-you! What a great article.
Speaking a language with no meaning just combination of sounds, that for everybody else sounds like a language they don’t know
not-doing , stalking, aid to inner silence and realy fun 🙂 especialy if there is 2 of you doing that in an ordinary social event
Just throwing out 1 sentence and then silence or talking in native language has an interesting effect on others
good for changing bad language habits (shit, fuck …… (for thouse who still have them)) just say something with no known meaning instead gives an insight of uslesnes of that basic reaction that couses to say thouse words
Also it has an interesting effect on inner dialoge, if you speak with language that has no meaning in u, sounds don’t record, so don’t repeat themselves. So it’s an infinite play of creation, intending and using something that doesn’t exist
I LIKE! Porteller vel lo che. Vel LO CHE!
Not-doings as I understand them is any form of behaviour that breaks our routines. That way we stay fluid. This must also be true of emotional responses & beliefs.
Personally I am trying to be patient & understanding with poor babys who normally piss me off. They burdon me even more which makes it even more demanding.
Other not-doings I am trying are, squatting on the toilet seat instead of sitting normally (takes a while to get your balance), helping my friends with their decorating (I fucking hate decorating aarrrrrrrrhhhhh!!!!).
I also have a slight stammer which I am now exagerating (that is s s s so embarrasing)
What/Who is this “Usher”?
Please excuse my ignorance and humour me.
Omeiga con brio es enguiguawn sui muuuux
DJ defined “doing” as what gives people their shields. So you could, in addition to other definitions, say not-doing is what lowers our shields and makes our gap vulnerable… what allows death to touch us.
A not-doing, if not another definition of not-doing, is to do nothing.
I’m aware of several ways to do nothing:
One is to not respond to thoughts and events that arise as if they mean something personal to you – thoughts and events arise; that’s their nature. It doesn’t mean you have to do anything about them.
Another is to just be – meditation without an object. It’s nearly impossible for most people to just stop and do nothing.
Another is to remove the idea that you are the doer. You do nothing – you are “being done” by the source.
Another is choiceless awareness – simply engaging the actual present moment without thinking, weighing options, decisions… there’s only one here and now, what choice do you have?
In zen there is the expression, wu wei, which has been translated as not-doing. From my understanding, it refers to the concept given by Buddha that thoughts arise, yet there is no thinker; deeds are done, but there is no personal doer thereof.
The uninvestigated belief in an individual ego-self which exists distinct and seperate from the world as the subject-object relationship is, IMO, the greatest habit, assumption, routine, doing… that we do. It is the root of all other doing. No other doing is done without the “I” thought first arising.