In the cultivation of mindful awareness, we try to take the unusual position to not try to get anywhere else. Non-striving is also known as non-doing. We can be holding things in awareness without having anything happen or achieve a particular state. We can be with the unfolding of life without expectation or agenda. This is healing. We are always trying to better the future or escape from the past. We can just let things be as they are. It’s not easy to do, as we often have long lists. The longer your list, the longer you can practice non-striving. Even if the moment is unpleasant, you don’t need to fix it, it’s enough.
Non striving comes out of being mode rather than doing mode. The qualities of being mode are:
- Connection with the present moment
- Acknowledgement of how things are in the moment
- Willingness to allow things to be just as they are… no efforts to alter/change experience
- Openness and acceptance of pleasant, neutral, and negative emotional states
- Calmness, stillness, and a sense of being centred
Non-striving doesn’t mean you won’t get stuff done, it means that what you are doing, winds up coming out of being and therefore has much more wisdom and appropriateness to the situation than the option you might have taken through pushing and forcing.
“There is no need to put anything in front of us and run after it. We already have everything we are looking for, everything we want to become.
Be yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just be. Just being in the moment in this place is the deepest practice of meditation. Most people cannot believe that just walking as though you have nowhere to go is enough. They think that striving and competing are normal and necessary. Try practicing aimlessness for just five minutes, and you will see how happy you are during those five minutes.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
Moment By Moment
Why push so hard
Why keep your head down
Why sprint when you can run or jog
There is a world out there calling for your attention
Moments longing to be loved
Tasks longing to be attended to
Skies longing to be gazed at
Leaves yearning to be crunched
This openness allows the world in
There for the taking
Moment by moment
And breath by breath
~ Ruth Farenga, Founder & Mindfulness Trainer, Mindful Pathway
References:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/poem-non-striving-ruth-farenga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3xwfECuYc
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8002885-there-is-no-need-to-put-anything-in-front-of