Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Not-Doing
To deliberately interrupt habitual, automatic ‘doing’ — the routines, opinions and self-image that run on autopilot — so that fresh perception and free attention/energy become available, and the rigid sense of self loosens.
Mares’ not-doing: Notice how automatic your day is. Pick one small routine and deliberately break it — different route, other hand, stay silent where you’d assert, don’t defend yourself when criticised — doing it with full attention. Especially not-do the ego’s automatic moves. The disruption pulls you out of autopilot and frees attention; use it. Keep it small, safe and continuous.
What it is
In Théun Mares’ Warrior’s Path, almost everything we do is “doing” — the vast web of habitual actions, routines, opinions, and self-images that we perform automatically and that, together, hold our familiar sense of “me” and “the world” rigidly in place.
Not-doing is the deliberate practice of interrupting that automatic doing: doing the ordinary differently, deliberately suspending a habit, or acting against the grain of what your self-image “always” does.
The aim is not random eccentricity but to break the routines that imprison perception, free up the attention and energy normally spent maintaining them, and loosen the fixed self so that something new can be perceived and chosen.
Read honestly, this is structured habit-interruption and self-image flexibility training dressed in Toltec language. Mares pairs it with recapitulation, stalking and working with emotion as one of the four core tools of the warrior (those first two are covered in the separate entry).
The Method
A faithful representative outline of not-doing as Mares presents it:
- See your “doings” first. Through self-observation (stalking yourself), notice how much of your day is automatic routine — the same route, the same opinions, the same reactions, the same way of holding “who I am.” Mares’ point: this habitual doing is exactly what keeps you stuck and predictable.
- Pick one small doing to break. Choose a single concrete habit or routine — not a life-shaking one. Examples in the Toltec stream: change a fixed daily route, do a familiar task with the non-dominant hand, deliberately stay silent where you’d normally assert your opinion, sit somewhere new, sleep the other way round in the bed, drop a habitual mannerism for a day.
- Do the not-doing deliberately and with full attention. The value is in the awareness the disruption forces, not the act itself. Performing the unfamiliar thing pulls attention out of autopilot and into the present — you have to actually look, because habit can no longer carry you.
- Especially, not-do the self-image. Mares’ deepest application is to the defended self-image and self-importance: deliberately act against what your self-image insists it must do — refuse to defend yourself when criticised, decline to take offence, let someone else be right. Not-doing the ego’s automatic moves is, for Mares, where the real energy is reclaimed.
- Use the freed attention/energy. With a routine interrupted, attention that was bound to the habit is briefly free. Mares frames this as energy that can be rechannelled toward awareness and deliberate action rather than spent propping up the old self.
- Make it continuous. Like stalking, not-doing is not a one-off exercise but an ongoing way of living — a constant readiness to break your own automaticity. (Sourcing note: a faithful generalised description. Mares lists not-doing among the four practical techniques of Return of the Warriors — “working with emotion and intent; recapitulation; stalking and not-doing” — and develops the breaking-of-routines and not-doing-the-self-image emphasis within his Toltec Teachings. Specific not-doings above are representative of the Toltec stream Mares teaches in. The honest mechanism is in Section 5.)
Source & Lineage
Théun Mares (1952–2011) presented his systematic Toltec Teachings beginning with Return of the Warriors (1995), which introduces the Warrior’s Path and its everyday tools “used by warriors. to build self-belief, self-reliance and self-empowerment,” explicitly including not-doing. → suggested node.
Not-doing (el no-hacer) is shared with the broader Toltec/Castaneda stream, but Mares folds it into a coherent four-tool practice set aimed at dismantling social conditioning. See also and Castaneda’s related entries.
The Traditions' versions
Stalking the self (Mares) — the awareness side; not-doing is the action side.
- Castaneda’s not-doing — the same Toltec source-idea (focusing on the shadows of things, doing the unaccustomed). - Behavioural activation / habit interruption (CBT) — deliberately changing routine to break automatic patterns and shift state.
- Wu wei / Zen “beginner’s mind” — meeting the ordinary without the overlay of habit and opinion.
- Mindfulness of autopilot — noticing and stepping out of automatic doing.
- Power posing / acting “as if” — embodied disruption of a habitual self-presentation.
Common refinements
Confusing it with novelty for novelty’s sake. The point is the awareness the disruption forces, not collecting eccentric experiences.
- Going too big. Start with small, safe not-doings; dramatic life-upheaval isn’t the practice.
- Skipping the self-image application. Mares’ real target is the defended ego — not-doing your automatic offence-taking and self-defence is where the work bites.
- Doing it on autopilot. A not-doing done without attention is just another doing. Keep it deliberate and observed.
- Treating it as occasional. Like stalking, it’s a continuous discipline, not a weekend experiment.