The Art of Doing Nothing and Seeing Everything

Tulku Ngawang Tenzin

We are addicted to distraction. If we are not scrolling through our phones, we are scrolling through our memories, insecurities or our anxieties. We are so afraid of being bored that we would rather be miserable than be still.

In Buddhism, meditation is not a way to become a ‘better person’. It is simply a way to stop feeding our own thoughts and to get used to - or to be familiar with - the true reality of our own self and existence. To do that, we use two very simple tools: Shamatha and Vipassana.

1. Shamatha: Training Your Mind Like a Dog

Think of your mind as a glass of muddy water. As long as you keep stirring it with your worries, plans, and opinions, the water stays cloudy. Shamatha is the metaphorical act of setting the glass down and leaving it alone.

The Goal: Stability.

The Method: Focus on something simple, like the breath. Not ‘special’ breathing - just the air going in and out.

The Catch: Your mind will run away approximately every five seconds. The practice isn't ‘not thinking’, it’s noticing when you’ve wandered and coming back. Over and over.

By doing this, we develop a mind that doesn't freak out every time something goes wrong. We develop the ability to stay.

2. Vipassana: The Courage to Look

Once our mind is a little bit steadier, we can look at how it works. This is Vipassana, or ‘insight’.

Most of us take our thoughts very seriously. If a thought says, ‘I'm a failure’, we believe it. If a thought says, ‘I hate that person’, we act on it. Vipassana is the process of looking at the thought and realizing it’s just a bubble. It has no substance. It’s made of nothing.

When we combine Shamatha (calm) and Vipassana (insight), we start to see that the things that usually make us suffer, like our ego or our fears, are actually quite flimsy.

The Four Seals

We begin to realise the Four Seals:

1. All compounded things are impermanent.

Everything we experience - people, things, and situations - changes over time.Nothing stays the same forever.

2. All emotions are unsatisfactory.

Feelings come and go. Even happy moments don’t last, so depending on them forlasting satisfaction will always leave us wanting more.

3. All things have no inherent existence.

Nothing exists completely on its own. Everything is connected and depends on other things to exist, including our sense of self.

4. Nirvana is beyond concepts.

True freedom and awakening can’t be fully explained with words. It’s something we need to experience directly.

Most people want insight without first finding calm. They want to be ‘enlightened’ while their minds are still restless and chaotic. But without the steady focus developed through Shamatha, Vipassana can turn into nothing more than intellectual gymnastics - a kind of ‘spiritual window shopping’ that never leads to true understanding.

The Bottom Line

We might ask, ‘Why would I want to see that my “self” is an illusion? That sounds depressing.’

In fact, it’s the ultimate liberation. We need both Shamatha and Vipassana. We need to be calm enough to look, and brave enough to see that the ‘self’ we’ve been protecting all these years is just a series of habits.

This isn't about finding bliss; it is about realizing that the self doesn't exist in the way we thought it did.

And that realisation, as it turns out, is the only true form of relaxation.

We practice Shamatha to stop being a victim of our distracted minds, and we practice Vipassana to stop being a victim of our own delusions. It’s not about becoming a ‘good’ or ‘calm’ person. It’s about becoming a sane person.

Visiting Master Tulku Ngawang will be in residence at AyurMa at Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru from February 1st to February 10th 2026.