The Slippery Art of Wu Wei,
Or The Art of Doing Nothing The sage goes about doing nothing,
Therefore nothing is left undone.
Wu Wei is one of the most difficult concepts in Taoist philosophy.
Roughly translated,
It means doing nothing.
Westerners who were first introduced to Taoism sometimes think the term Wu Wei means sitting around and doing nothing,
A passive acceptance of life and a sort of mushy,
Hopeless attitude.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Alan Watts calls Wu Wei a form of intelligence,
That is,
Of knowing the principles,
Structures,
And trends of human and natural affairs so well that one uses the least amount of energy in dealing with them,
Or the innate wisdom of the nervous system.
Far from being a passive acceptance,
A resignation to things,
It is instead an active engagement with things as they are.
It is a way of working with the dynamics of any situation in order to find the path of least resistance and then following through.
The true meaning of the phrase Wu Wei is something like not doing anything that is not natural,
Or not doing anything that does not have its roots in Tao.
It can also mean not overdoing anything.
Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching tells us,
Overfilling a vessel is not as good as stopping before it is filled.
Oversharpen a blade and it will lose its edge.
Pile up gold and jade and it will be impossible to guard it.
In going after rank and titles in an arrogant and haughty way,
You will bring about your own downfall.
Withdraw when the work is done.
This is the way of Tao.
It is often in overdoing something,
Even if it is the right thing,
That we are led astray.
To attain anything,
Even spiritual growth,
In an arrogant and haughty way is to invite our own downfall.
But to do our good works and then retire,
Not calling attention to ourselves,
Is truly the way of the sage.
My teacher Hua Ching Ni talks about the Taoist going about doing secret good deeds.
People who call attention to themselves,
Being proud of their accomplishments,
Be they material or spiritual,
Are only setting themselves up for a fall.
It is better,
Say the sages,
That one does one's deeds or spiritual practice in a quiet and humble manner and then moves on.
Wu Wei is the opposite of You Wei,
Or action with useless effort.
It is coupled with spontaneity and a deep awareness of what is happening in any situation,
Allowing one to discern whether it would be better to act or not to act.
It is a kind of spontaneity which,
As Clay Weltham says,
Cannot be captured,
Only fostered.
It is a kind of perception of the currents of any situation and our place in it.
Lao Tzu says that teaching without words and working without doing are understood by very few.
And,
Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.
The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it,
You will ruin it.
If you try to grasp it,
You will lose it.
Trying to hold tight to any situation,
Trying to figure out just what exactly is going on,
And most of all,
Trying to control the situation through force of will or use of quote knowledge or intellectual gymnastics is foolish and will in all probability land us on our faces in the mud.
Zhuangzi says,
The knowledge of the ancients was perfect.
How perfect?
At first,
They did not know that there were things.
This is the most perfect knowledge.
Nothing can be added.
Next,
They knew there were things but did not yet make distinctions between them.
Next,
They made distinctions between them but they did not yet pass judgments upon them.
When judgments were passed,
Tao was lost.
Or you could say,
Connection to Tao was lost.
Taoists are lovers of simplicity and naturalness.
Zhuangzi says,
The wisdoms of the ancients were perfect because they did not know there were things.
They did not differentiate.
They did not catalog.
They did not separate one thing from another,
One state of mind from another,
One state of being from another.
This way,
They were able to remain pure and close to the original,
Undifferentiated Tao.
My Taiji teacher,
David Cheng,
Was fond of telling us,
It is our mind that gets us into trouble.
It is our mind,
Our discriminating intellect,
That creates all sorts of problems for us,
Then thinks it can figure a way out of them.
But then again,
David said,
Without our mind,
We would not know how to drive a car or take a bus or make our way to Taiji class.
We would not understand what language he was speaking or how to follow his movements.
Our mind is a tool,
He said,
A wonderful,
Useful tool.
Sometimes,
For example,
We need to discriminate.
We need to be able to look at a situation dispassionately and intelligently and see if it is a situation or a relationship or a job or a person that is good or bad for us.
This is a good way to use that marvelous tool,
The mind.
But let us put it back in the toolbox when we're done with it,
He would say.
Let us not leave it lying around where we can step on it or trip over it all the time.
How are we to work with this slippery concept,
Wu-wei?
The old maxim,
Learning by doing,
Applies here as well as anywhere else.
It is a matter of going slowly.
The slower,
The better.
The wonderful dance of Taiji is a perfect example of wu-wei in action.
The gentle movements are done as slowly as possible so that it becomes a sort of dancing meditation.
Often we find ourselves in trouble simply because we're going too fast,
Disregarding signs of trouble that we would have seen if only we had been going a little slower.
All too often we get caught up in the rush.
Our whole culture is based on it.
Get ahead,
Do it now.
So stop to listen quietly to the voices within,
The still small voices as well as the loud and clear ones.
It is hard,
If not downright impossible,
To hear them when we're going fast,
Listening instead to the constant blare of the world around us.
Sometimes the right thing to do is not to do anything.
Wu-wei is an attitude,
An approach to life itself.
When we become sensitive to the current of change all around us,
We will be able to make intelligent decisions at all times,
Using the innate wisdom of our bodies and energy systems as well as our minds.
As A.
C.
Graham in his excellent translation of the Book of Lights says,
Nowhere is there a principle which is right in all circumstances,
Or an action that is wrong in all circumstances.
Wu-wei is learning how to conserve our energy and not spend it frivolously or in fear or confusion.
Sometimes it is far easier and actually in our best interests and in the best interests of the actual situation to do nothing or find some way around the situation than trying to go through it.
We may be sick or injured and lying in bed,
Trying hard to figure out what is going on,
Why is this happening to us and when will it be over?
While the body,
Mind and spirit are tied up in knots,
Trying to decipher this maddening puzzle,
We are getting nowhere,
Slowly.
How much easier,
Though it takes a little practice,
To just let go and let be what is and learn how to be okay while we're not feeling okay,
Or as the Taoists say,
Being at rest even when we're not at rest.
Sometimes it's just not anything to do and the best course is to relax and do nothing.
Later the situation may change and there will be something we can do to help ourselves.
Then,
With the same grace that we did nothing,
We can do something.
Oftentimes doing something is not better or more important or even more helpful than doing nothing.
When we feel stuck and unable to move,
What we're actually doing is storing energy to be able to make a move or the kind of move that will actually mean something.
Like water,
Our energy must slowly collect before it can spill over the dam.
Often when we think we shall never get out of our rut or never be able to move again,
Being patient and conserving our energy will help us make an even greater move when the time is right.
By learning to relax and discover the intrinsic flow of events that contain and are contained by our lives,
We can reach some measure of security and perhaps even wisdom.
Drangsa likens this state to that of a drunken man.
A drunken man falls out of a cart.
Though he may suffer,
He does not die.
His bones are the same as other people's,
But he meets the accident in a different way.
His spirit is the condition of security.
He is not conscious of riding in the cart.
Neither is he conscious of falling out of it.
Ideas of life,
Death,
And fear cannot penetrate his breast.
And so he does not suffer from contact with objective circumstances.
And if such security is to be got from wine,
How much more to be gotten from spontaneity.
In this passage,
Drangsa describes u-wei as spontaneity,
A total identification with the present moment.
For in reality,
There is no other moment than the one we are in.
So then,
How to develop this sense of spontaneity,
This sensitivity to the here and now?
A.
C.
Graham says,
If he wishes to return to the way,
He must discard knowledge,
Cease to make distinctions,
Refuse to impose his will and his principles on nature,
Recover the spontaneity of the newborn child,
Allow his actions to be so of themselves,
Like physical processes.
By not forcing,
By going with the flow,
By letting things develop in their own time,
By not being attached to outcomes,
By giving ourselves time to just be.
Through meditation,
Walking in nature,
Through whatever activity or non-activity that allows us to feel the spaciousness of our true self.
By being comfortable with not being okay sometimes.
These are all ways to open ourselves to the ongoing,
Ever-flowing stream of life both within and around us.
And in that connection,
We can begin to heal,
To find the path to wholeness.
And in this way,
We can open ourselves to new experiences,
New ways of seeing and being,
New attitudes and ways of looking at the world and our own place in it.
