On Sundays, people from around the world come together for a live meditation and hang out. Or they watch it later. It’s fun (ish). It’s community. Nothing really happens.
If you don’t want to read any of this, here’s a 7 minute do nothing meditation:
What is the Do Nothing Project all about?
The world is filled with so many interesting things! People doing stuff, going places, making things happen. It’s all very exciting.
This is not about any of that. Welcome to The Do Nothing Project. An experiment in … not much. Together.
You can either watch it on your browser, or on the Substack app. On the first Sunday of the month, the DNP is free for everyone to join. The other Sundays of the month are for paid subscribers to Home Base.
A recent broadcast of the Do Nothing Project, from April 5, 2026
After a few words of greeting, I or a guest host guide a minimalist 25-minute meditation that you can feel free to ignore. The time can be used to meditate, to doodle, or to stare vacantly into space muttering ‘the humanity.’ If a paid Substack subscription is out of reach, just email us at info@jeffwarren.org and we will give you a scholarship.
The whole thing has a nice community feel, with people from around the world accomplishing nothing together. If you miss a broadcast (like maybe you have a “job”), it is archived on Substack and YouTube, so you can watch it later, on your own timeline.
Of course, one could argue the moment we implement a meditation technique we are in fact doing something, but let’s not quibble. We are after directionally more of nothing than our previous moments of something.
Why join us?
Of course I have no idea. I could go into a dull rant about the unconscious violence of our over-caffeinated workaholic culture (for which I am Exhibit A), but really, who has time for it?
Let’s just say: because it will be a training in equanimity. Because every episode will be a low-key surprise. Because it’s good to sit in community – near and far – and do mostly nothing. Together.
Hope to see you soon.
Jeff
Here’s a Washington Post column on the Do Nothing Project.
“A certain amount of ordinary laziness would lend our culture the pleasant mellowness which it singularly lacks.” – Alan Watts
“Zazen [meditation] is good for nothing” – Kodo Sawaki Roshi
“What I like doing best is Nothing.” “How do you do Nothing,” asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time. “Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, ‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and you say, ‘Oh, Nothing,’ and then you go and do it. It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
