wu wei/go with the flow
“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.”
- Matsuo Bashu
I was listening to a former professional basketball player the other day, and he said, "When we were losing, we realized that the one thing we could control was attitude. If we stopped worrying about losing and instead connected back to the fun of the game, we started shooting well again and got ourselves back into the game." It was actually by backing off and having fun that they starting being successful again. You've probably heard other people talk about how things finally clicked once they stopped thinking so hard about something, or how creative or scientific insights often arrive when they are least expected, often when the scientist or artist is working on something else. Why is this? I believe the spirit of the Tao, or Chi, only comes in when we have let go of control. I believe Chi is the source of all successful human endeavors. It's the power that keeps the universe going and lights us with its spirit. When we let go of our expectations and just do what we do without overthinking it, chi is able to show up.
The wisdom of trying less is easily seen when you consider surfing. To surf on water, you are in essence balancing yourself on top of the moving tide. The trick to surfing is sensing when the tide is swelling beneath you and then jumping on your board at just the right time and then maintaining your balance as your board catches the moving wave. All of the movement is a result of the wave, not the surfer. The surfer may direct his board, but it's the wave that moves the board. Can you imagine someone in the middle of the still ocean jumping on their surfboard and trying to make it move on their own? Ridiculous, right? But in life we do this all the time. We believe that by our sheer effort we can accomplish great things. But the truth is that the most important things in life are accomplished by the power of the Tao, not us. Yes, we accomplish small things, but the big important and life shifting things come into fruition through the power of life itself. It's that magic something that we can't really define but that somehow makes everything work. It's why we connect with someone. It's how someone writes an amazing song. It's how someone comes up with an idea that changes the world. It applies to our own lives, too: life will be more rewarding and we'll be more satisfied with our results if we try less and let the Tao do more. We of course still do things, but we do them less frenetically. We are patient. We also let go of expectations. We do the simple work and rely on the Tao to bring in the magic. If we are trying too hard we are just exhausting ourselves and often locking out the Tao.
Wu Wei does require some action, but when we are aligned with the Tao, that action will be minimal and will occur at just the right time. It's kind of like surfing through life. When a surfer wants to flow across the water, he doesn't just start pushing his board over the ocean. But how many of us try to force things in life as if we are in control of everything? The surfer knows the ocean is in control and that he will move only when he catches a ride on the flow of the ocean, a wave. So he patiently waits for the right wave to come. And then because of his experience, he knows just when to jump up on the board - a very minimal action, and then he lets the wave push him quickly over the water toward the shore. It's a beautiful thing.
This flow - known as chi - runs through all aspects of life: relationships, work, art, societies, EVERYTHING. In fact, I believe every human success is the result of tapping into chi. I was listening to a Beatles song the other day and thought, "How in the world did a few sounds and words captivate so many people in so many places throughout so many different time periods? It's because those words and sounds were created through chi and capture a part of the Tao. When we hear or see the Tao, we know it and we like it. When a football player is able to amazingly catch a ball and then dart through multiple opponents and then fly through the air to land in a small corner of the end zone, it's because he is hooked into his chi. And if you ask people like this how they do what they do, they often tell you they don't know, it just happens. Yes, work, or rather practice, is involved. But the magic behind it, the magic that we all sense, comes through them not from them.
The really interesting thing about chi is that it only shows up when you're not looking for it. How many times have you heard people say the answer just came to them when they weren't thinking about it. Or it was an accident. Lao Tzu tells us if we seek it, it won't come. This is why not trying is key. Yes, we practice and we put ourselves in the right places as much as we can. But then we let go, especially of expectations. We just do our best and whatever happens, happens. We don't care what others think. We aren't seeking fame or wealth. We are just doing what we do with no expectation. And that is when chi is able to come in.
In what areas of my life are my expectations high? How could I let go of those expectations and just quietly and humbly do what is needed?
Have you ever felt chi working through you? What were you doing? What about your mindset and expectations allowed flow to happen?
Yielding is the way of the Tao. (44)
In so many ways, our modern culture teaches us that to succeed in life, we need to be fighters. When we see a wrong in society, if we have any decency at all we will speak out about it. Being a we may protest it in word or action. If someone is dragging us down, we need to establish stronger boundaries. If we see weakness within ourselves, we are told to battle against our own demons. We have to be stronger than our addictions. We have to destroy the enemy. And on and on. In essence, we believe that success belongs to those who can conquer with strength. The Tao tells us exactly the opposite. Lao Tzu tells us not to fight back, not to become strong as a rock but rather he encourages us to become soft, in fact as soft as water, and to yield like water does. It is by becoming soft that we are able to bend in response to life's challenges and remain whole. If we instead become rigid in defense of ourselves or what we believe is important, when resistance comes we can't hold and we break. In this light, we see that water, which flows wherever it is told and easily makes room for whatever comes toward it, but which when gathered together wields incredible force, is actually the strongest thing in the universe. And the more like water we become, the better off we will be.
What does this mean? If a punch is being swung at us, we step out of the way and let the aggressor fall forward. If someone is saying things we disagree with, we allow them to continue because eventually they will recognize their words and attitude are not reflecting truth. If we are unhappy with a habit we have, rather than block it we might encourage alternative outlets for that energy. In essence we let things work themselves out rather than relying on our own limited and shortsighted strength and understanding to direct the flow of energy and life.
Doing Nothing
In many translations of the Tao Te Ching, the concept of Wu Wei is conveyed through the English words, "do nothing." This presents a lot of confusion. Is Lao Tzu telling me to literally do nothing? When I first started attempting to live a Taoist life, I took this teaching literally, and as I wasn't working at the time, I tried to do much less with my time. I sat around and thought a lot. To be honest, it was a good experience as I felt myself more in the flow of life rather than simply a consumer of life (through words and images). It also increased my acceptance and gratitude for the present. And this is at the core of the book, "The Tao of Pooh." Pooh, the perfect Taoist, has no goals and keeps to no schedule. He just exists. (I had a hard time reading and accepting that book in my ambitious early adult years!) But when I shared my experience of doing nothing with a few Taoism experts, they let me know that this is not what Lao Tzu was teaching. A better interpretation of his words is simply, "try less" and "force nothing." The message is that we need to stop feeling as if we control everything in our lives and that only sheer effort and focused emotional investment will allow us to achieve what we seek in life. Again to the surfing analogy. Doing nothing would mean we don't even hop on the board. Trying less means we allow the forces of the universe to propel us toward our loosely hoped for goals, forcing nothing.
No Wasted Action
Another aspect of Wu Wei is getting to the point that all you do is exactly what is needed, nothing more and nothing less. A friend once told me of a stone layer and how he worked. He would gather his pile of stones but then instead of starting straight away to lay the stones, he would just sit and look at the site where the wall was to be built. He might do this for over an hour, just studying the site and what the future wall would look like. Then, when he was ready, he would build the wall stone by stone, and soon he was finished. In the process he rarely had to move or reset a stone. In essence, there was no wasted action. This is what Wu Wei is getting at. We become so skilled at what we do, we understand our tasks so deeply, that we are able to make the most minimal action possible to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. It's clean, it's swift, it's almost like a work of art. It's effective in war, in sports, in relationships, in raising children, in creating art, in building cities, in managing yourself. It's how nature works. It's a cousin of simplicity and acceptance. We don't complain how something is difficult or that it's not how we want it to be. We face reality, we understand the task that needs to be done, and we do it when it needs to be done, not too early and not too late. We may need to practice on a smaller scale before we are able to act with such precision, but as we live each day in acceptance, humility, and simplicity, our actions and our ability to recognize what needs to be done becomes more and more precise.
quotes
“A man brings about real increase by producing in himself the conditions for it; that is, through receptivity to and love of the good.
Thus the thing for which he strives comes of itself, with the inevitability of natural law.” - Fu Xi
“Sometimes I ceased to live and began to be.” - Henry David Thoreau
“All that is best for us comes of itself into our hands—
but if we strive to take, it perpetually eludes us.” -Ananda Coomaraswamy
“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.” - A.A. Milne
“The thought struck him like a bullet. Ambition dropped like a plummet. Rid of the heart-burn of rejected love and all the other stings and pricks of life’s nettle-bed his ambitions had burnt upon him, he opened his eyes which had been wide open all the time but had seen only thoughts.” -Virginia Woolf
“If you meet someone never looking for a reward, acting completely unselfishly but leaving visible traces on the world, you are in the presence of an enlightened, unforgettable character.” -Jean Giono (from Shan Dao)
“The key phrase the Tao Te Ching uses to characterize the dynamic outworkings of the Tao in human affairs is wu wei. Literally the phrase translates as 'inaction,' but in Taoist context its meaning is 'no wasted motion' which stated positively comes to minimum friction and pure effectiveness.” - Huston Smith
“You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality.
You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more.” - Charles Bukowski
“‘doing without doing’: uncompetitive, unworried, trustful accomplishment, power that is not force.
- Ursula Leguin
“I have nothing much to do with the writing of them (songs that have been any good,).
The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.” - Joan Baez
"The day you stop racing is the day you win the race." - Bob Marley
“The secret of the magic of life consists in using action in order to achieve non-action.” -Lu Dongbin
“A man must become truly poor and as free from his own creaturely will as he was when he was born...
He alone has true spiritual poverty who wills nothing, knows nothing, desires nothing.”
-Meister Eckhart
“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.” - Matsuo Bashu
“The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking.
The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.” - George Christoph Lichtenberg
“What can ever be lost? What can be attained? If we attain something, it was there from the beginning of time. If we lose something, it is hiding somewhere near us.” - Ryokan
“Beauty—be not caused—It Is / Chase it, and it ceases / Chase it not, and it abides” - Emily Dickinson
“Intuition is instinct becoming conscious of itself, set free from the slavery of exigencies it leads us to the very depths of life itself. A type of knowledge akin to art but having for object life itself, it transcends intellect but uses intellect to
grow beyond the limitations of mere instinct.” - Henri-Louis Bergson
“Let yourself be carried away, like the clouds in the sky. You shouldn’t resist. God exists in your destiny just as much as he does in these mountains and in that lake.” - Herman Hesse