If you leave yourself alone, you can notice that your heart beats by itself, without your efforted assistance. You can also observe that your breathing occurs on its own, whether you are paying attention to it or not. In this vein, you can also see that you are naturally in the space you are physically occupying, without thinking about it. You are just there, in your particular activity, giving weight to whatever surface is under you (floor, couch, chair, bed, etc.). In the same way we witness that our heartbeat and breath are “mindless,” we can say that our physical activity is mindless. Another word for physical activity would be action, i.e., what we physically do in real time. Action is mindless.
This statement clearly goes against our ideas and beliefs about how actions manifest. The belief is that we need to do something to bring them about. How could action possibly be mindless? In the same way respiration and digestion are mindless. They just happen (from our perspective). Our body is automatically in whatever space/place it is in. When we look down we see that it is simply there, doing whatever it is doing, in its full capacity, just like we observe movement in our chest (our breath) and a flutter in our wrist (our pulse).
Take a moment to bask in the involuntary qualities of circulation, respiration and action. Slow down to see how your body moves by itself through all its activities, even if, after the fact, you believe you “did” something to make the movement happen. You can even notice that thinking is mindless, as thoughts enter and leave our awareness randomly, and completely on their own.
Jill Eng 