The Sutra in Forty-Two Chapters, the earliest sutra to be translated into Chinese, in the second century C.E., has the line, “The Dharma I offer is the practice of non-practice, the action of non-action.” We think of action and non-action as two different things. When we say, “Don’t just sit there, do something!” we are urging people to act. But if someone is in a poor state of being, if they don’t have enough peace, enough understanding, enough inclusiveness, if they still have a lot of anger and fear, then not only will their action have no value, it may even be harmful. The quality of our action depends on the quality of our being: skillful action arises from the foundation of being, and being is non-action. So the calm, mindful, fully present quality of our being, the quality of our non-action, is already a kind of “action” in this sense.