Do Be Doing
No amount of doing can produce a fulfilling life. Doing is either an expression of fulfilment, or it is contributing to creating an illusion of it.
The manifesting of fulfilment is vastly different from actions that are chasing reward. Of necessity, the former is doing without need, so it is activity without attachment to results. Fulfilment is intertwined with the liveliness of generosity and gratitude – it is not in opposition to either inaction or dissatisfaction.
If I am trying to get something out of activities, what happens when I stop? If I am afraid of a time when I no longer can ‘do’, what does that say about my life now? What about when I am asleep? Where is all this doing then? Do I have to crank up doing when I open my eyes again in the morning? If it’s really like this, then existence is an incessant treadmill towards a result that is always out of reach. That’s how we can easily become, and that’s not what the nature of reality necessitates. To thoroughly clear up any apparent deficiencies in ourselves requires diligent self-reflection.
The objectifying of life’s completion is indicative of some degree of disassociation, upon which gain, loss and avoidance quickly follow. Letting go of mind puts an end to this unforgiving cycle of lack. While we are hoping to put off facing any neediness in ourselves, we are continuing to perpetuate unease and the causes of despair. The seeking of fulfilment is unfortunately denying the rewarding nature that is intrinsic to being.
The classic cartoon scenes, where a character, unaware that it has walked off a cliff, continues to walk as if there is solid ground under its feet, could serve as a visual allegory for the influence that delusion has on experience and actions. In the shadows of chasing fulfilment, life is bonded with delusion and failure immediately becomes a persistent background threat to success.
Asserting that either action or inaction produces satisfaction is to be caught in the enticing trap of opposites – the water sold by the river is seldom as eye-catching – the irrepressible treasure that is both priceless and given freely – is the hardest to appreciate, it seems. The way of Zen is not a way of balancing the books, it is the way of total exertion.
As body and mind are one, being is doing. As there is no need to make distinctions between doing and not doing, opposites are clearly delusory. When all is activity and all is stillness, there is the total function of non-action and non-seeking. Activity responds in time and place in whatever way is appropriate and possible. There’s no need to fear what will happen when we inevitably become incapable of action.
When body and mind are one, neediness dissolves into the fathomless generosity of existence. Everything is already a continuous self-fulfilling unfolding – there are no foundations in the body on which to generate fulfilment. As the nature of body and mind is radiance, there is true ease, unconcerned with either doing or not doing.
Willard Lee August 2025
edit: 06/09/25