Taoist Story Of Wu Wei - Effortless Action

This talk goes over an old Taoist story of Wu Wei (or effortless action) which arises from mastering a skill so fully that it can be performed without much effort. I also introduce and relate the "Hierarchy of Competence" scale in this lesson. As a recap, the Hierarchy of Competence goes as follows: (1) Unconscious Incompetence; (2) Conscious Incompetence; (3) Conscious Competence; and (4) Unconscious Competence (Effortless Action).

Transcript

Hey this is Ish and today I want to talk to you about an old Taoist tale on mastery.

So this tale starts with an old butcher named Ting,

His name is Cook Ting,

And he was preparing an ox to carve out for the lord Wen Hui at the time.

And Wen Hui was watching Cook Ting carve the ox into different pieces and he was just amazed at the proficiency at which the master Ting was cutting up the ox.

So it was almost like his movements were like a dance,

It was very fluid and he was able to cut up the ox without hitting any kind of ligaments or any stoppages and it was a clean movement.

And Lord Heng Wei was very impressed by him and asked him,

Wow how did he do that?

So Cook Ting responds that he at the moment he uses the way,

This is the way in Taoism which is he relies on the space within to guide his movements,

But it wasn't always the case.

So when he had first started he saw the entire ox as it was and he tried to divide the ox up into different parts that he would cut and make a lot of mistakes.

And then three years in he didn't see the whole ox but rather he compartmentalized the different pieces that he knew he was going to cut and his movements became a bit more smoother.

But after a period of time of practicing his movements and repetition over the years he became very proficient and at this point he could almost do it blindfolded so he could intuitively feel the senses of where he was going to go and he could feel into the spaces of where he was going to place his knife rather than using his mind and concepts.

And this relates to the stages of competency.

So at the hierarchy of competence,

At the very lowest levels you have unconscious incompetence.

So this is where you don't even know how bad you are because you've just never done an action or ever thought of it.

And then the next step above this is conscious incompetence.

So now that you've taken action you now specifically know how bad you are and it might shock you at first.

And then after some practice you have conscious competence so now you are able to perform and do well.

And then the last stage is where Kuk Ting is at and this is unconscious competence.

So unconscious competence is where you're able to perform at a very high level without even thinking about it.

This becomes a state of no mind.

And this is a very powerful place to be and you can see this in any kind of activities or whatever the case is in your life where there's different stages.

So I'll use meditation as an example.

So when people originally start meditating they at first before starting they are completely unaware of how their mind works and how to deal with their thoughts and their emotions.

So they have a stage what is called ignorance where they are ignorant of their mind and they identify with the ego a lot.

So they aren't even aware that they can use a practice like meditation to help better themselves.

And then once they start meditating this is where you get into that space of conscious incompetence.

So now they realize how bad that badly their mind runs their life and they're unable to control it.

So before they had no knowledge of this whole art but now they realize how bad they are.

And then through practice of sitting through your meditation you gradually develop the stage of conscious competence.

And now you're able to sit for your meditation and you're actually able to center your mind and not be swayed by the pulls of your emotions and different thought patterns and aversions.

So now you gain some competence.

Within one step above is the stage of unconscious competence.

So in the conscious competence stage you are still losing yourself once you left your meditation mat.

But in unconscious competence you have essentially become one with meditation.

So if you ever look at high level masters of meditation they say that meditation is their being and all activities come from that space that you build through your meditation.

They call it the oneness or awareness.

So all their activities actually come from this space that they've created in their meditation and they're able to sustain that space throughout all their activities.

So that's how these people that have a lot of meditation hours under their belt they're able to sustain this long lasting meditation over periods of time and it never wavers because that's just who they are.

And you can also see there's a lot of like studies on this and a great book to read is Altered Traits.

And in this book they study how for beginner practitioners they're never able to to actually control their mind and they struggle with it but they do experience some benefits and over time they gain more of that experience and they're able to control their mind but then the effects of meditation just disappears after they leave their cushion.

So they might sit for an hour and then they go out and their spouse or parent or whoever the case is annoys them and then they lose that composure that they've built up.

And then for long-term meditators people who've done over 10,

000 hours of meditation in their lifetime and even up to 60,

000 which is like an insane number for them meditation has become part of their being.

So the same headspace that you would feel after doing let's just say an hour of meditation that's how they feel all the time when they're doing groceries when they're going out to do you know get gas fill up gas or working out they just feel this overwhelming like bliss and peacefulness throughout their day because they've developed such a high level of competency that it's pervaded their being.

You can see at different stages different stages of mastery.

In the beginning you're in a state of no mind where you don't think about things but you're just so bad that you just don't know where to begin.

It's like people who say that they can fight without even having ever fought before because they just have no knowledge of what that would be like.

So you can see the videos like this on youtube where some untrained fighter would think that he can fight a skilled fighter and he just ends up like losing really badly.

And then once he starts to get into the practice he is aware of what he needs to work on because now he's like oh wow I didn't realize how bad I was and then he slowly develops the conscious competency and now he knows how to strike or how to do a certain move and then he becomes proficient in it but then eventually he comes to a point where it's unconscious competence so now he can just his instincts will just kick in so if you ever were challenged to a fight or self-defense situation he wouldn't have to think and his movements will just guide him through repetition.

And that's something Bruce Lee said a lot too and he taught a lot of lessons.

He combined a lot of the eastern spirituality into meditation and fighting and he found a way to combine both and bring that Taoism.

He also studied Taoism as well so I think that was kind of unique how he was able to bring that lessons into his martial arts too and how the way or the space of being will naturally take over after a long period of focus and repetition.

So that's just another cool story on mastery and I hope you develop your skills.

Thank you.

Reviews

Excellent lesson!

Beautiful thank you 😊

Great lesson. I apply it to my yoga practice. I'm at conscious incompetence.

Super interesting 🙏

Hi Ish, thanks for this very nice one! Joe

Great information thank you and Namaste