In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells
Arjuna that, “the wise man sees action in inaction, and inaction in
action.” Sometimes, the most powerful action you can perform, is
to perform no action at all.
I was in the sixth grade in Livingston,
Montana. Due to inclement weather, our class was having recess
indoors, in the gymnasium that doubled as our lunch room, and I was
sitting cross-legged on the floor, in a circle with perhaps a dozen
other boys. Sitting next to me was a boy who's name I've since
forgotten, but who's well-earned reputation as a bully I can still
recall. We sat around, bragging about imagined exploits and
generally lying to one another as young boys are wont to do, when the
bully next to me suddenly turned to the boy sitting on his other side
and viciously pinched the inside of his thigh, twisting the flesh
until the boy squealed like a frightened piglet. A hardy laugh was
had by all...well, all except the victim.
When I had seen what happened to that
other boy, I had known immediately what would be coming next. I
knew, as certainly as I knew that the sun would go down that evening
and come up again the next morning, that the bully's next move would
be to repeat his pinching and twisting procedure on another victim;
and I knew that I would be that victim. But as I realized this I
also made a decision: I would not try to stop him from torturing me
but neither would I respond to it. I would let him pinch, but I
would not squeal. I steeled my pre-teen nerves.
And sure enough, the young bully turned
to me like clockwork and, with an demented grin, pinched my thigh and
twisted hard. It hurt, sure, but I just looked at him placidly,
trying my best to remain totally expressionless. His grin at once
vanished, replaced by a look of confusion. Maintaining his grip on
my thigh-flesh he asked in a tone of near wonder, “doesn't it
hurt?”
“A little.” was my nonchalant
reply. My voice didn't even waver. The bully released his grip, and
I could sense that he was a little bit scared now, despite the fact
that I was a scrawny kid who had never hurt anybody and didn't intend
to. But my unexpected reaction, or rather lack of reaction, had
thrown him out of his accustomed role of victimizer by making him
apparently powerless over one who would normally be playing the role
of victim. In this unaccustomed circumstance, he did not know what
to do or what to expect next, and uncertainty, as I learned, is ever
the traveling partner and boon companion of fear; and it must be
said, I never got any more trouble from that boy.
Krishna tells Arjuna that, “the wise
man sees action in inaction, and inaction in action.” The modern
world is a very hectic place, everywhere people scurry from one
occupation to the next, one task to the next, one hobby to the next;
seeking ever higher levels of productivity, efficiency, luxury,
bliss. The modern world is very busy, full of action, and yet there
is nothing, really, going on. The forces that drive individuals and
society as a whole today are no different than those forces and
desires that drove the conquests of the Romans or the slaveholders of
the old South. There is much apparent action in the modern world,
but it is nothing more than a repetition of what has already been;
now dressed up in hip modern fashion and sporting an electronica
soundtrack, but only original on the surface, being, at heart, the
same as what has come before. Hollywood is an almost pure
manifestation of this principle, with their endless sequels that
simply repeat the same simple plotlines in endless variation. Yes,
we have progressed from Saw I to Saw VII, but has anything really
changed?
On the other hand, an introverted stoic
or contemplative mystic may seem, to the outside world, to be
supremely inactive. There can hardly be conceived anything less
active than Zen meditation, for instance, which is described by Zen
students as “just sitting.” And yet, if through this process of
just sitting, a person comes to a clearer understanding of the
reality in which they find themselves entangled, if they find some
peace or contentment that is both beyond and yet embracing of their
everyday reality, then true and profound action has indeed occurred.
And also, there is this: that true
action is impossible while one is in the process of reacting. Before
one can truly act, that is to say, before one can act with free will,
before one can be said to have willfully and intentionally initiated
some action, one must first keep oneself from reacting, since
reacting is only the repetition of already existing conditioning, of
old modes of behavior.
If I call you a “d-bag a-hole” and
you punch me in the face you have not truly acted, only reacted to my
insult. It would be just as possible to assign the volition for the
punch to me myself as it would be to you, since I was the one who
initiated the sequence of events which unfolded mechanically once my
insult had been uttered. Of course, it may be the case that I called
you a “d-bag a-hole” not as an act of my own volition, but only
as a reaction to some other event, say being intoxicated with
alcohol. In fact, this is the case for most of us, most of the time.
We are rarely, if ever, acting with true volition, with truly
thoughtful intention, because before we have a chance to collect our
thoughts we have already reacted in our accustomed way. When one
becomes aware of this, the whole concourse of everyday life can seem
nothing but reactions to reactions to reactions, with nary a truly
intentional act to be found. It is for this reason also that we are
told, “the wise see action in inaction and inaction in action.”
The first, essential step to true action is the control of one's
conditioned reactions, and so inaction is, in this sense, the
necessary prerequisite to action.
