Taoism: Thoughts on "Wu-wei"

 

Copyright 1990 by John R. Mabry

 

In Inaction we find one of the most easily misunderstood concepts of Taoism. To Americans, a line like "When you practice not-doing, nothing is left undone"1 sounds like a rationalization for supreme laziness. In fact it is just the opposite. Inaction is the most efficient means of accomplishing that there is, and for this reason it deserves our attention. Not because it is an exotic and interesting notion, but because most Americans run in a perpetual rat race and suffer the damage caused by ulcers, heart attacks, nervous disorders and just generally being pitiable walking buckets-of-stress. Let us not think that this behavior exclusive to our culture, however; as the cliche goes, "things are the same all over," even in ancient China. In Psuedo-Chuang Tzu we read, "I look at what ordinary people find happiness in, what they all make a mad dash for, racing around as though they couldn't stop."2 Inaction is, in a way, a means to a fresh start, a new outlook, a more compassionate way of living towards others and ourselves.

 

The Chinese word for inaction is wu-wei, which literally means "not doing", but it has many applications, some of which will be addressed here. It also means "not forcing" and that is the meaning which we will address first.

 

Wu-Wei

Using wu-wei begins with an understanding of The Way Things Are, as the Taoist sees it. The Taoist watches nature and sees that all that nature does--eroding mountains, growing forests, making rivers--all this is accomplished effortlessly. Being one with the Tao, nature goes its own way and forces nothing; and yet grand works and great beauty result. "Hence wu-wei is far from being inactive. It is supreme activity, because it acts at rest, acts without effort."3 When the sage, recognizing his or her oneness with the Tao, acts upon his or her environment in the spirit of the Tao, then, as Thomas Merton writes,

 

His [or her] action is not a violent manipulation of exterior reality, an 'attack' on the outside world, bending it to his conquering will: on the contrary, he respects external reality by yielding to it...a perfect accomplishment of what is demanded by the precise situation.4

 

This intuitive form of action plays itself out in all of the planets arenas: the natural world, the interpersonal world and the personal inner world. Benjamin Hoff believes that it "seems rather significant that the character Wei developed from the symbols for a clawing hand and a monkey, since the term wu-wei means no going against the nature of things; no clever tampering; no Monkeying Around."5 Like everything else in nature, humankind should live effortlessly. This means working hard, as the beaver does, but not going against Nature's flow, as we humans tend to want to do at every opportunity. Then our work pours out of us in a spirit of joy and fulfillment, not as is often the case, work being a curse which we must somehow endure daily from nine to five.

 

Not Forcing: The Will

 

"A truly good person does not try to be good, therefore is he able to be good. An ordinary person tries to be good, and finds that he cannot."6 No matter how firm our resolve, how deep our commitment, we cannot seem to maintain anything remotely resembling a perfect state. Psuedo-Chuang Tzu tells us "In archery, the man who hits the target without aiming first is the good archer."7 His skill is not related to his effort, but to his ability to yield to his natural impulses. "Whoever tries will fail"8 says Lao Tzu, for when we are trying we are forcing nature, not flowing along with it. Any time we resort to forcing, we are destined to failure. As Holmes Welch points out "force defeats itself."9

 

What is the solution, then? Not to try. "Therefore the Sage, not trying, cannot fail. Not clutching, she cannot lose."10 Remember that "the truly virtuous person does not try to be virtuous."11 Virtue needs to come naturally, effortlessly, like breathing or hearing. The Sage is not concerned with being virtuous. This is very important. He or she does not give it a thought. It is not a goal. The goal is to respond humanely--as a human would--to whatever situation life gives. If the natural response to an event is anger, the Sage does not question the feelings rising up within; he or she just lives in them. If the natural response is joy, they will most likely smile, but they will not think "Gee, I'm smiling. Why am I smiling? Is it really appropriate to smile? Perhaps I shouldn't look so happy because I might make other people feel bad by comparison..." and so on. The Sage, says Chuang-Tzu, "feels a pleasurable sensation before he smiles, and smiles before he thinks how he ought to smile."12

What happens when we do this? We find that we are "acting from the heart."13 We are living as humanitarians, as humans were meant to live by our very nature.

 

Not Forcing: Physical

The Taoist has nothing against physical action in itself, but rather, as Holmes Welch describes, "all hostile, aggressive action. Many kinds of action are innocent. Eating and drinking, making love, ploughing a wheat field, running a lathe--these may be aggressive acts, but generally they are not."14

 

The Taoist finds that there are humane and reliable methods to achieve one's end. It is easier to direct the growth of a young sapling than it is a giant redwood. It is the nature of a sapling to be flexible and therefore easily influence by its environment, including us. But to direct a

redwood is another matter altogether. This would without question be forcing the tree against its nature and would probable destroy the tree. Therefore Lao Tzu says,

 

"Deal with the difficult while it is still easy. Begin great works while they are small...A tree too big around to hug is produced from a tiny sprout. A nine-story tower begins with a mound of dirt. A thousand-mile journey begins with your own two feet.15

 

The distinction here is influence rather than aggression. One should not force one's body to leap unprepared into a 20K marathon; one should influence one's body slowly, so that it gradually becomes sufficiently conditioned for such things. Not to do so would not only be violent, but would demonstrate a profound lack of compassion for the self.

 

Likewise, the Taoist cooperates with nature. It is only common sense when one works with wood that it is easier to work with the grain that it is to oppose it. Opposition requires force, but collaboration between the nature of the wood to flow one way and the nature of the wood-worker (to respond appropriately to the wood) requires little effort. Chuang Tzu tells us the story of Cook Ting who was cutting up an ox for his Lord, Wen-hui. His work was swift and smooth and in perfect rhythm. His Lord was amazed and praised him. Ting responded: "I go at it by spirit and don't look with me eyes....I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are."16

 

So not-forcing is the gentlest, easiest and safest way to live in the world. Psuedo-Chuang Tzu describes a drunken man who fell from a carriage, but because he was drunk he did not know he had fallen, had not tensed to prepare for hitting the ground, but limply acquiesced to the situation. "Life and death, alarm and terror do not enter his breast, and so he can bang against things without fear of injury."17

 

Not-Doing

Not-doing is the most delightful interpretation of inaction. It is also very difficult for Westerners to accomplish consciously, and yet it happens to us all the time. This process values being over doing. This involved being completely absorbed in one's activity, with full attention and skills brought to bear in the present moment to the effect that there is no division between oneself and one's work. For instance, supposing I am washing the dishes (one of the banes of my existence). If, while washing, I am thinking "I can't wait to get this over with...what should I wear tonight?...I've got to make time to study that report...thank God this is the last fork...I hate forks..." etc. I am obviously not engrossed in my activity, I am off in fantasyland, actively hating this chore. This is not my idea of a good time. The Taoist or zen practitioner, however, would consider such activities an excellent opportunity for meditative practice. The goal would be to focus the mind solely on what one is doing, not day-dreaming, consciously returning the mind to one's work when one realizes it has strayed. When I am successful at this, I enter totally into the experience, I am fully present, aware of all my senses bring me, engrossed in the activity. I stop "doing" the dishes, and start being-the-act-of-doing-the-dishes. This is difficult semantically, but the concept is pretty simple; instead of "doing" work, I become the work. I am the work. And so it is no longer work; it is being fully present in the "eternal Now", a state of grace where I am fully conscious of my own presence and the Oneness of things. The work, no matter how trivial, is an expression, a celebration of being alive. I found that I achieved this state most often when I have worked, at various stages of my life, as a retail cashier. At a restaurant, a bowling alley or a record shop, whenever we were "swamped", simply too busy to think of anything but moving on to the next customer, these were places that I "became" my work most easily. Time just dashes by, for I am at one with my activity. I am being, not doing. As Lao Tzu said, "Block your openings, close your doors, and you will not be forced to toil your whole life long,"18 because your activities will cease to be empty toil. One of Medieval Christianity's Rhineland mystics, Mechtild of Magdeburg said something similar: "The noblest joy of the senses, the holiest peace of the heart, the most resplendent luster of all good works derives from this: That the creature put his or her heart wholly into what he or she does."19

 

No-Purpose

Not-doing also implies the most obvious activity of having no activity or even reason for any activity. That the act of bathing in the sun should be the most virtuous of activities seems to these Protestant-work-ethic ears a ludicrous idea. Lao Tzu tells us "If you throw wide your openings and spend your life rushing around "doing" things, your life will be beyond hope."20 It is difficult for some of us to slow down and not to feel guilty. This, as I, chief of offenders, am painfully aware, is self-destructive behavior, and as detrimental spiritually as it is debilitating physically. To rest, to "waste" time is opportunity for contemplation and centering. I, and many like me, take life much too seriously, and in that we miss the very point of life itself. Alan Watts writes,

 

Viewed as a work of "serious purpose" the creation simply does not make sense. For a great part of the universe seems to have no purpose at all; there is much more of it than is necessary; there is a prodigious waste of space and energy; and it is inhabited by a stupendous variety of weird organisms that apparently have nothing better to do than reproduce themselves in alarming quantities.

 

Children (and adults who have their wisdom) are usually the most happy when they are doing things that have no particular purpose--making up lunatic stories with friends, walking aimlessly through fields and hitting at old stumps with a stick, whittling hunks of wood just for the sake of whittling and drawing wayward and interminable designs on scraps of paper.20

Smullyan in The Tao is Silent informs us that dogs have the Buddha nature. What does it mean to have the Buddha nature? The Buddha is at peace whether come famine or feast, and is compassionate towards self and others. In the same book, there is a haiku poem and commentary by Blyth:

 

The puppy that knows not

That autumn has come,

is a Buddha.

 

The puppy even more than the mature dog takes

each day, each moment as it comes. It does not

 

Look before and after

And pine for what is not.

 

When it is warm, it basks in the sun; when it

rains, it whimpers to be let in. There is nothing

between the sun and the puppy, the rain and the

whimper.22

 

In this way, "No-Purpose" implies no desire as well. Purpose necessitates a goal, a desired end. If one has no desires, one has no expectations nor goals, so no purpose to be about. The puppy has no goal, the puppy just is: is hungry, is cold, is sleeping, is not pining or desiring anything for the future; the puppy lives wholly in the now and the needs of the present moment. The puppy has no call, no mission from God, no greed to make him dangerous.

 

We may ask which of the above interpretations is "correct," but we won't. There is a school of literary criticism which only accepts the author's intended meaning as valid, but this is a narrow approach and neither Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu would have approved; otherwise they would not have been so intentionally ambiguous. Indeed, truth cannot but be couched in ambiguity and retain some scrap of relevance to the balance of the human family apart from one's peculiar culture. All of the above positions have the potential for relevance, and probably not all of them to everyone; nor is this intended to be an exhaustive list of interpretations--far from it! These are merely the views which have impressed this writer. But all of the interpretations have common ground--the perception and reaction to things-as-they-are--the very ground of Tao.

 


NOTES:

1. Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching, chap. 48 (See note on translation, below).

2. Burton Watson, translator, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 191.

3. Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), p. 76.

4. Ibid.

5. Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh (New York: Dutton, 1982), p. 68.

6. Lao Tzu, chap 38.

7. Lin Yutang, translator, The Wisdom of Laotse (New York: Random House, 1948), p. 203.

8. Lao Tzu, chap. 64.

9. Holmes Welch, Taoism: The Parting of the Way (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), p. 20.

10. Lao Tzu, chap. 64.

11. Ibid. chap. 38.

12. Yutang, p. 203.

13. Lao Tzu, chap. 203.

14. Welch, p. 33.

15. Lao Tzu, chapters 63-64.

16. Watson, pps. 50-51.

17. Ibid., p. 199.

18. Lao Tzu, chap. 52.

19. Sue Woodruff, ed. Meditations with Mechthild of Magdeburg (Santa Fe: Bear and Company, 1987), p. 118.

20. Lao Tzu, chap. 52.

21. Alan Watts, Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion (New York: Dutton, 1948), pps. 174-176.

22. Raymond M. Smullyan, The Tao is Silent (New York: Harper and Row, 1977) p. 121.

 

About the Translation of The Tao Te Ching

This translation used was made utilizing Dr. Yi Wu's fine Chinese/English interlinear The Book of Lao Tzu (The Tao Te Ching) (San Fransisco: Great Learning Publishing Co. 1989).

In addition, careful observation was made of others' renderings in existing English translations, below:

-Lao Tsu: The Tao Te Ching translated by Gai-Fu Feng and

Jane English. (New York: Vintage, 1989)

-The Wisdom of Lao Tsu translated by Lin Yutang. (New York:

Modern Library, 1976)

-Tao Te Ching: The Richard Wilhelm Edition translated by

Richard Wilhelm. (London: Penguin, 1985)

-The Tao Te Ching: A New Translation with Commentary

translated by Ellen M. Chen. (New York: Paragon House,

1989)

-Tao Te Ching: A New English Version translated by Stephen

Mitchell. (New York: Harper and Row, 1988)

-Lao Tzu/Tao Te Ching translated by D.C. Lau. (New York:

Viking Penguin, 1963)

The translations used for Chuang Tzu were:

-The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu translated by Burton Watson. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968)

-The Wisdom of Laotse translated by Lin Yutang. (New York:

Modern Library, 1976)