Hi everyone,

In the spirit of Ajahn Chah, my main practice right now is to "watch the mind." I try to follow the mind wherever it goes, and watch whatever it does, including any sense of controlling or managing or creating experience. Although I'm basically surrendering to the mindstream, it's still kinda effortful; I apply a gentle, continuous effort to maintain awakeness. It's like an effortful curiosity. 

On the other hand, I see teachers like Michael Taft emphasize "do nothing" or "surrender" or "dropping the ball" meditation as the primary practice. This is where you do nothing, zero effort, and if you start doing something, you relax so that you're doing nothing again. This allows the meditator to see the effortless spaciousness that is always under contracted experience.

If someone is striving for fourth path, how would you recommend they balance effortful practice and Do Nothing? Will they be fine if they solely do one or the other? I would love to hear your guys' thoughts.

My best guess as to what the answer is:

• It is healthy to have a balance between effortful and effortless practice. Effortful practice allows us to marshall the energy and clarity needed to "learn" the increasingly subtle and elusive layers of mind. However, in applying this effort, we may apply too much effort. We may inadvertently refuse to let the mind be as it is (which is, after all, the goal). We may insulate some parts of mental experience from investigation—namely, the sense of a controller/watcher/meditator/effort-er. We may identify too heavily with focused attention, and refuse to simply let the mind be.
• Thus, it is important to also engage in the (relatively) effortless Do Nothing practices, where you aren't supposed to do anything at all. Thus, this practice is an opportunity to see that the sensations of the controller/watcher/meditator/effort-er actually arise all on their own—they're empty like all the rest. We get to see that the mind is clear and awake and spacious all by itself. We get a chance to see that there is no need to so tightly control experience. This practice is also a refuge for when the meditator feels like a "dry insight worker" who's frying themselves and has vipassana grumpiness. 
• Do Nothing techniques can be really helpful in earlier practice, e.g. as a framework for letting yourself surrender to the dark night, or for allowing yourself the looseness to attain cessation. However, as an anagami working toward fourth path, Do Nothing probably just doesn't have the horsepower for you to reach the finish line. The dukkha that remains is very subtle, very elusive, and it likely takes active investigation to suss it out. 

"Do nothing" as a practice works to reach the goal of mind optimization if there is simple unobstructed by the so called "false vacuums" path from point where you are to where you need to be. This is by itself not viable in practice - and this being not viable isn't usually consideration by most "teachers" advocating for the practice because it is also not viable for person to actually do whatever these people who advocate for the method think you should do. In reality mind will jiggle its way using moments of effortlessness to self-optimize and moments of effort to try to "jump over obstacles".

I mention this because it is actually useful for quick and meaningful results to be aware how it works.
In practice if you want quick and good results you should be aware of the "landscape" of your mind in whatever space you observe (and since there are many different ways to look at the mind there are man different spaces or landscapes) and if necessary do such effort/will fueled actions which will move the mind in to direction which will be actually supporting further "do nothing" kind of practice rather than when you feel distressed by current location (figuratively speaking) struggling to do nothing at this moment because some teacher said its the way and all you need to achieve.

In practice when you have mastered it it looks like whether you notice that perhaps your mind state isn't perfect as in it doesn't feel like it could not be in any way improved beyond what it is (in which case the "mind" as in problem solving faculty doesn't exist for mind itself and you are already in meditation and "do nothing" perfectly) then the correct procedure/algorithm is to check the landscape, estimate where the point where you need to be is and like Buddha hinted you do not do anything to get there other than stop being where you are and be where you should be. Perfect precision is hard but if you are skilled in that "method" (I guess it can be called like that) you will be able to figure out where to aim for to get relatively high chance of landing in such a place from which you won't have to do anything else with effort/will for mind to roll to its optimum place, sweet spot.

Otherwise if you could do nothing being in totally wrong place your mind could take very long time to get to its optimum sweet spot and it would do it by jiggling around increasing amplitude of the jiggles to overcome obstacles it needs to overcome and this would only cause it then to have this increased momentum which could interfere with its further activity on the way to sweet spot. Eventually if the increased momentum is not needed mind will slow down by itself given enough time.

It can be done this way and this is what most people advocating for "do nothing" have in mind when they suggest the method. It works.
It is just terribly inefficient and will NOT help you learn few useful skills that can be very helpful. Eventually the ability to just let mind self-optimize in its own pace is still needed and I am not suggesting to not do that - what I am suggesting is to not avoid trying out more active and targeted approaches to re-configuring your mind. In either case you need to be mindful - and of course it doesn't mean noting sensations but more like being mindful of your mind's landscape and how it evolves over time and as a result to actions which happen (both "by itself" and when "you do them" (here it would be good to mention - the "you" in this equation can vary a lot... but its a bit more advanced topic so I'll break it here)) so that you can later predict which actions need to happen (triggered in any way that is available to you and has least negative side effects - or in other words appear as most skillful) so that you can target them to happen, then check if both where you wanted your mind to land is where it is after the actions were done and if it is then if your initial assessment where it should land was where it should be. In other words you can think where you need to be, do action which brings you exactly there but it is still not where it needed to be and on the other hand you might totally miss the target you specified - those are actually two completely different things.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly: the "do nothing" in its optimal version is not about not doing anything or letting things to happen because what things will happen if they are not done by "you"? It is about not doing things which you are unsure of doing and would do them just because you feel the need for something to be done and assume by default that since you are "active" so to speak it is your responsibility to do something. The mind architecture is such that there is bazzilion "yous" in there and if one of them isn't feeling the topic maybe someone else is and it is that "you" which should act - and in this case if you forcefully try to make things to feel as "happen by itself" you only artificially impose restrictions on what you can do and how it feels and these will affect what you can do and what you can know about what you can do. You can train your mind to play this charade but it is neither useful, nor fast not even ultimately satisfying. If you really have good connection to your mind, can see its landscape, etc. then you can also see how different parts of the mind can be just as much "you" as you whoever "you" think is "you"... hint: there is no singular "self" that manages everything - doesn't mean you should create impression that at any moment there isn't self which did something to contribute to the final outcome. As long as there is right mindfulness regarding what part of the mind did what to get to outcome which is being observed then there won't be any confusion regarding activity in your mind.


ps. BTW. I said most people/teachers don't know what they are talking about is because they all nilly-willy appear like simplifying things beyond what is actually needed to know by their students - this is not because they deliberately chose to simplify things as optimal way to carry out the teaching. They just don't know themselves these things because: surprise surprise, not that many actually enlightened people despite numerous bold claims.

Also lastly one bit of advice: never ever try to attain what some other dude got. Always and I mean ALWAYS aim to surpass everyone you meet and this include yourself. If you do not do like I just said then you will inevitably end up aiming too low and then when you hit even lower than you aimed conclude this is it and then if you would become a teacher you would preach "do nothing" without understanding its nuance. Also - and even more importantly - if you look closely at those so called teachers with maybe even a bit forced and exaggerated affinity to do psychoanalysis - all of them, and I mean ALL of them have complexes about their attainment and constant need for validation from outside. My recommendation is: don't, just don't

Watching and noticing you are doing something and relaxing so that you stop doing it, is not nothing, it is doing something.

"Do nothing" is just another samatha technique to make the mind single pointed.

Watching the mind is a vipassana technique.

Buddha taught samatha and vipassana are two qualities of mind that should both be cultivated.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html

If you look at the anapanasati sutta where Buddha teaches meditation on the breath, it includes samatha and vipassana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapanasati#In_the_Theravada_tradition
https://dhammatalks.net/Books3/Bhikkhu_Buddhadasa_Anapanasati_Mindfulness_with_Breathing.htm

In my practice I use samatha techniques to quiet the mind, to help let go of attachments and aversions, to provide a pleasant tranquil mental state by which dukkha arising is easily noticed, etc. all of which provide a mental state that makes vipassana possible and productive. I practice vipassana mostly by watching the mind in meditation and daily life, noticing dukkha arising and fading, noticing how the ego is involved in dukkha arising, and trying to let go of attachments and aversions. This is a way of observing the three characteristics and interrupting dependent origination.

 Thank you for the replies, everyone! It makes sense that Do Nothing is on the concentration end of the concentration-insight spectrum. Accordingly, it contains some insight value, and so it makes sense that it can yield progress, albiet slower progress, as Ni Nutra suggests. I'll continue my effortful practice—it's more my style, anyway.

Maybe Michael Taft's "non-dual" curriculum uses Do Nothing to start, but throws in some more effortful practice later on, and I just haven't noticed. (Is that what vipashyana is?)

Ni Nutra, your point is well taken re: not artificially limiting my actions to only those that can be done by the non-doer. It's an attachment that I'll try not to nourish. 

There was a long period in my practice where some actions were done by the doer, some by the non-doer. But these days, the non-doer is dominant; I typically only feel authorship/control when I'm half-zoned out. Indeed, my big problem is desperately wishing I could take some actions, but feeling utterly unable to through either the doer or the non-doer. (It's procrastination woes that I've had since long before beginning practice.) Maybe I'll make a proper post about that. 
 

You always know too much effort because you get edgy and burn out. If you notice you're burning then try cool off a little, relax more, do less. 

In general, do nothing can be more appropriate at certain times and in certain stages of practice. 

​​​​​​​Have you logged any of your practice here? It's a great way to get into the nitty gritty of what you personally might need today and next week and next month etc. 

What really is effort phenomenalogically? 

@Geoffrey
Definitions vary. I'd say that effort is a sensation of strain or "work" somewhere in 3D space. It can feel like it arises and passes on its own, independently—that's a no-self perception of effort. Or it can feel like it's created and controlled by a central, separate agent—the typical mode. 

I would contrast effort with "control." Control is the feeling of being a separate self who is causing, creating, or managing experience.

For an arhat, I imagine that some effort remains, but it happens without any control, so a lot of the unpleasant parts of work are gone. Everything starts itself and finishes itself. 

As my practice has progressed, I've noticed the amount of effort necessary to watch the mind has become more and more subtle. For brief moments, it feels like it isn't there. But watching the mind generally requires a feeling of control for me. If I totally let go of the reins, I end up "just sitting there like an idiot." 

Maybe the "effort" I feel while watching the mind really is just the solidifications and resistance that I'm supposed to feel out, and not some lactic acid byproduct of watching the mind. Actually, nevermind. I think the effort I feel is the discomfort of controlling experience. Of course, I try to include this discomfort in my investigation. 

@bahiyababy 
I'm considering it.