Jon Kabat-Zinn on Mindfulness, Effortless Effort and Non-Doing

Not too long ago, Jon Kabat-Zinn, the author of Full Catastrophe Living and Wherever You Go, You Are There, gave a talk at Google on the subject of mindfulness and effortless effort.

The phrase effortless effort comes from the Chinese term wu wei, which is directly translated as non-doing.

Mindfulness and effortless effort are important tools for living a Low Density Lifestyle.

The concept of non-doing is a very difficult one for us Westerners to get, because we are used to doing, doing and even more doing. “How can we not do when there’s so much to do,” Westerners who contemplate wu-wei often ask – or at least this Westerner (me) did when I first learned of the term and tried to wrap my brain around it.

Anyway, I thought it would be best if I let Dr. Kabat-Zinn do the talking, and so I have posted his video from his talk at Google.

Watch it, and enjoy!

Being FREE: Flow/Relax/Effortless Effort

The secret to living a Low Density Lifestyle is becoming FREE. In an earlier post, I explained what the acronym FREE means. It stands for Flow, Relax, Effortless Effort.

Because it is a very important concept, I want to discuss FREE a little further at length.

The Flow state is known to athletes as being “in the zone.”  To an athlete, this is where everything just seems to go their way. And athletes will be the first to tell you that when they are in the flow state, they perform at higher levels.

Shawn Phillips, the well-known athlete, bodybuilder and author of Strength for Life, had this to say about the subject:

From the beginning, what I was connecting with in the gym was a universal energy source. I would just feel it flowing. Even when I was twenty years old, I called the gym my church. When I was there, it wasn’t about being social; it was about doing my practice. I was in it. I was in the zone.

Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, said,  “Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains.” In essence, this is what Flow is about. You become a circuit of energy, flowing infinitely, much like an unimpeded electrical circuit in which the electricity freely courses throughout.

Relax is something that doesn’t always come easy for many people. Sure, everybody knows how to veg out. But do you know how to profoundly relax, to tap into the stillness within and the center of your being?

To find that calmness and stillness within, you can do any number of things or techniques.  These can be meditation, prayer, walking in nature, speaking silently, listening to quiet engaging music, yoga, along with many other mind-body techniques.

A recent scientific study even found that relaxation techniques can beneficially affect your genes.

Relaxation is about finding your peace within the turmoil and hubbub of everyday life.  Some of you may do workshops or go to retreats or go on vacations to help find that inner quiet. And that is a good thing. But the trick is to embed that knowledge into your body and mind and integrate that understanding into your daily routine, so that everywhere you go, wherever you are, you are immersed in your stillness.

When you are acting with Effortless Effort, you can labor for hours on end, at times functioning on little sleep, and yet feel full of energy and life. You are firing on all cylinders, and the universe seems like a giant playground. You love what you do and you do what you love.

Interestingly enough, there are times when stress has a positive connotation. There is a term, eustress, which is the positive aspect of stress. In this case, a person is very busy, doing many things, but they are thriving in the midst of it, and loving how productive they are. A person in this situation is in full Effortless Effort mode. To an observer, it would seem as if this person is pushing themselves far too much and burning themselves out. But to the person immersed in Effortless Effort, they are thriving because they are firing on all cylinders and feeling alive, vibrant and awake.

And so, this is what being FREE is all about. Remember the formula? It’s LDL = FREE.  Keep that in mind–it will help you to live a Low Density Lifestyle.

The Low Density Lifestyle: The Secret to Becoming FREE

To live a Low Density Lifestyle, all you have to do is become FREE.  In this case, FREE is an acronym that stands for:

Flow

Relax

Effortless Effort

Let’s break that down some – I’ll explain what I mean:

Flow: Flow is the state of feeling fully in synch and in harmony with the universal flow that permeates throughout. You feel like you are in the zone at these times. The author and creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as:

” ‘Total control’ of one’s own mind is in fact too strong an expression to describe accurately what happens when one is in flow. The point is not that one can always do what one wants, but rather that the possibility of making things happen as one wishes is present in a way that seldom occurs in ‘real’ life.’ ”

Relax: Relax means finding the calmness and stillness within. When this happens, you can find your center and your balance. You can also find peace, because you are able to shut out all the static and noise that circulates all over the place.

There is a Spanish saying, “Cuán hermoso es de no hacer nada, y entonces descansar después.” This wise traditional proverb translates as, “How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then to rest afterward.”

And yet, so many of us are like a chicken without a head, running around here, there and everywhere, with a frantic energy. One of the big problems of modern day society is that so many people are burning their  candle out at both ends. The Chinese philosophers would say that people are burning out their yin, their nourishing aspect.

Effortless Effort: Effortless Effort is something the ancient Chinese philosophers called wu wei. The state of effortless effort describes a condition in which you are busy with effort, yet it seems effortless, as if the world seems to be working for you. You feel calm yet alert, focused yet receptive, drawing force from the storm while standing in its eye, acutely using all your senses. Like a marathoner who feels pulled forward, you accomplish the most with a minimum of energy. In this state hard work does not feel like work at all.

And so,  when you practice these essential characteristics—flow, relax and effortless effort—you promote a Low Density Lifestyle for yourself. An easy way to make these a part of your life is to commit to memory the simple formula: LDL = FREE.  That prescription stands for Low Density Lifestyle = Flow/Relax/Effortless Effort.