Doing Nothing

Many reviewers sound frustrated by Harrison's book. Most of the bad reviews complain that he didn't explain clearly enough HOW to do nothing. Harrison's point is that you can never figure out how, and yet the goal is certainly accessible. Those who attempt to approach it through a strategy or through understanding will fail because strategy and understanding are techniques only used by the mind. The mind is a tool that can copy and mimic, but is incapable of transcendent experience, after all what do you think is being transcended? The mind can not get you where you want to go. The desire can not get you there either. As Harrison points out there is no getting there at all, but the transcendent experience of being is real. It sounds like an impossible conundrum, but it is not. The key is in Harrison's writing about thought. It seems obvious to say it, but to transcend the mind all thoughts must cease. Thoughts only originate in the mind. The thought of getting away from where you are or getting to another place must be given up, or you will find yourself going in circles of the mind. Not very many people know how to stop their mind. It is our primary survival tool. Every thought you have is an illusion, including the thought of your personal identity. I should say especially your thought of your personal identity, since that is the root of all other thoughts. You think you are a person, you think you are your name and that your name identifies who you are. These are all just illusionary thoughts. So what is the experience of having no thoughts? It can not be understood with thoughts of course, but what Harrison is doing is describing what the world of thought looks like from the world of no-thought. It is like trying to understand the majesty of the Grand Canyon with Braille. For those who have had a glimmer of no-thoughtness through the study of Eckhart Tolle, or Eli Jaxon Bear, this book is useful as an anchor in that reality. Of course, that reality is the truth of our being, but day-to-day life often seems to reattach us to this world of thought identity. Reading Harrison is a very welcome daily meditation as a reminder of our true selves. Harrison wisely recommends only reading his book once so as not to try to capture his meaning with the mind. Our true reality does not need to capture anything since we already exist in pure reality. Our thoughts in fact, are the very thing which separate us from it. I read only one page a day and in so doing find that throughout the day I am more and more aware of myself as a vast field of energy unbound by any limitations, content and connected to all life. If you don't get it, you don't get it. But just relax, stop trying, you will!

Once I saw, through my own experiences, that all belief systems are just that--beliefs, with no basis in reality--I was left with "nothing" to hang onto. This may seem like a desperate condition--and at times it was--but it seemed to me like the only honest way to live, to admit that I know nothing. Reading Doing Nothing gave life to my understanding of the bankruptcy of beliefs. It gave me a fuller appreciation of what this means in a human being's day-to-day life. And it helped me to see that even when we give up our "belief in beliefs" they are still there! I experienced this book as an extended and very moving Zen koan that is just the doorway to a life of complete engagement with the truth of unknowing.

Without any overt reference to any sort of authority (transcending such is a fundamental theme here), this book clearly uses much of the same terminology and core concepts developed by the great J. Krishnamurti over decades of public speaking, and uses them to great effect. Once the truth of this teaching is realized, there is no longer any possibility of reliance on "concepts" of any kind, but paradoxically this realization must be expressed in words and therefore concepts if we are to communicate it; and if someone else (such as K) has clearly defined some ways to do so, there is nothing wrong in borrowing them. Harrison doesn't allow us to make the mistake of imagining that these conceptualizations are anything more than the finger pointing at the moon; it is the moon that is continually emphasized here. It is probably rare for someone who has arrived at this place to bother to write at all. We are fortunate that Harrison has.

This is not a typical book being read by the author tape, but rather a presentation/discussion by the author of the content of the book DOING NOTHING. For those who liked the book, the tape is an interesting compliment-- and like the book, fairly challenging to our spiritual concepts. The publisher, Sounds True, specializes in spoken wisdom and this tape is just that.

Steven Harrisons book is important for anyone on a a religious quest. It is especially important for those who are studying Buddhism. The book fits very well with "Buddhism Plain and Simple" by Steve Hagen and with "The Meaning of Mind" by Thomas Szasz. (Though I suspect Dr Szasz might object to having his work placed in the Eastern Religions category it is helpful to those who are wrestling with the issue "what is mind".) Mr Harrisons book also fits well with Batchelors "Buddhism Without Beliefs". This book must be read carefully. It's central message (on my interpretation) is the central message of Buddhism; once you abandon the "self" the quest is over. This doesn't mean one can quit the deep spiritual life; it simply means, as Gautama the Buddha is reputed to have said, once you reach the other shore of "enlightenment" you no longer need the raft that took you there. This is a wonderful book. Seekers of all kinds will like it. Buddhists would do well to read it more than once.