Some thoughts on wu wei

[Nikolai1]

Been thinking about this a lot recently...

 

You will never understand the principle of wu wei, nor the experience of living wu wei, unless you understand that you are not only a mortal individual living in time and space.

 

It is only with this realisation that you are able to drop all the notions of good and bad outcomes that dominate the mortal’s existence. If you are concerned with finding good outcomes and avoiding bad outcomes then you cannot live wu wei.

 

In order to live wu wei you must see, be open to, endorse and accept of all your urges, desires and actions – even if they might at some point lead to outcomes that a mortal might consider bad. To live wu wei is to accept the validity of all things.

 

You are able to accept all things because you have spiritual security. You know that whatever happens you are going to be alright, and so is everyone else. You are like the wise man of the Bhagavad Gita who ‘laments for neither the living nor the dead’.

 

You have no reason to fear what arises within you, nor what occurs outside of you. Because you are fearless, you are trusting of all that arises. Your trust confers upon your desires a kind of Divine validity – your trust makes you infallible.

 

Inability to trust your desires is due to fear, the fear of your mortal ego. The moment you stand in judgement of anything either inside you or outside you is the moment you cease to live wu wei.

 

To live wu wei is therefore an attitude, not a method and not a technique. You cannot describe the behaviours of the person who lives wu wei – they cannot be said to behave in any particular way. You also cannot observe wu wei from the outside – any conceivable action might issue from the person who has the inner attitude of wu wei.

 

Wu wei is trust. It is accepting all that comes and refraining from any judgement whatsoever. Wu wei is to live life as if in the palm of God’s hand.

 

It is often said the person living wu wei always acts skilfully and well. This is because he has the courage to trust his desires and the spiritual security to deal with any conceivable outcome.

 

And because such a person has the spiritual security to trust and endorse everything he has no need to search for contentment as the mistrustful mortal searches. He is not ashamed of his desires, he does not call them bad names. He just follows them.

 

The mortal man smothers his desires, and refuses to be averse to his aversions. They therefore give him no peace and he gets upset by their consequences. If he had spiritual confidence he would ride them all without disturbance. Nothing serious would develop, early of signs of bad outcomes are made immediately good by trust.

 

It is often said that you know you have acted well if you have a feeling of lightness and correctness. This is the feeling of trust. It is possible to have this feeling in the aftermath of any conceivable behaviour. Conversely it can be absent in the mortal person even if their behaviour is flawless in the eyes of others.

 

But the person whose trust is so strong would never be in a situation which requires heinous behaviours. Only a mortal, without spiritual security, would find themselves needing to commit great evil in order to correct inbalance.

 

The person far from wu wei feels fear and danger in insignificant situations. Their minds are able to travel far into the future in order to visualise misfortune. They therefore feel fearful and mistrustful in many situations. They need to go to great lengths to find peace, and their lives are distorted by the pursuit.

 

Wu wei is neither activity nor inactivity. When you trust your every desire and act without hesitation it is impossible to call it activity or uninactivity. The urge arrives passively and you implement it actively. And yet you take responsibility for your desires and feel that in your action the Tao acts through you.

 

Thanks for reading, Nikolai

[Marblehead]

First, and most important, let me say that I think you did very well with this.

 

I have a problem with some of the words you used though. Those are:

 

spiritual

divine

god

 

And I think the word mortal should be replaced with moral.

 

As Nietzsche would say: Be beyond good and evil.

[三江源]

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Edited March 30, 2015 by 三江源

[Marblehead]

spiritual

divine

god

 

are way beyond good and evil.

Yes, I would agree with you under certain circumstances. (The source and intention of the words matter.)

[Nikolai1]

Hi marblehead,

 

 

I have a problem with some of the words you used though. Those are:

 

spiritual

divine

god

 

And I think the word mortal should be replaced with moral.

 

 

Yes moral and mortal could mean the same thing because only a person worrying about their death would be worried about morals. To be mortal is to be moral.

 

I understand your concern with all these words like spiritual, divine and God - they are invalid distinctions that I use to make a point.

 

Actually even the term wu wei is a problem if it relates to a type of action. Strictly speaking all action is wu wei insofar as it is action. All of our actions are entirely pure and spontaneous. But there are persons whose purity and spontaneity is also accompanied by a peace and trust that is completely invisible to others.

 

All beings follow the Way, they cannot help but do that. For most this is a kind of blind obedience - they follow their passions here and there while thinking that they choose for themselves. But some people are able to stand back even from their own deepest passions and watch them arise as observers. These people still follow the way, but an important part of them is not following but rather watching it all happen. For such people the way has nothing left to teach them - they are now the way itself. They are the way becoming the way.

 

I'm personally really interested in that crossroads state when you can both observe passions arising, and yet the passions are so deep and overwhelming that you more or less lose your status as the observer. People at this stage are so astonished and the Christian would likely feel that they are being deliberately tested by God.

 

I really like that story about Abraham getting the desire to slaughter his son Isaac, If Abraham wasn't at the crossroads he would never have received a desire that was so contrary to his desires as a moral mortal. Of course, it is because he trusted his desire to slaughter his son that he saw that there was no need to actually do it, and he noticed a ram in the bushes to slaughter instead.

 

If anyone is reading this and would like to talk about strong and egoically speaking, dangerous desires I'd be really interested. Or perhaps I could start another thread...

[Vmarco]

spiritual

divine

god

 

are way beyond good and evil.

I fully disagree. Spirit (the in-breath/out-breath of duality), divine (an ego invention having to do with the devotion to godliness), and god (an imagained creator to make the illusions of the deluded ignorant more palatable), are all with the dualistic concepts of good and evil.

 

Although there were several insights, like the problem with fear, in the top post,...what was not mentioned is the necessity of letting go of all hope,...because fear will always persists as long as their is hope.

 

As Tilopa said, " the highest goal is being devoid of hope and fear."

 

Or as Chogymam Trungpa said, "to understand the most essential meaning of the Buddha's teachings, we need to let go of theism."

 

When theism is let go of,...that is, all things divine and godly,...only then can spirituality (the Yin/Yang of the in-breath and out-breath of perceived existence) be understood,...and until that is understood,...all ideas of Wei Wu are futile.

 

Lao Tzu said, "Dualistic thinking is a sickness. Religion is a distortion. Materialism is cruel. Blind spirituality is unreal."

Edited March 23, 2013 by Vmarco

[Marblehead]

 

 

Lao Tzu said, "Dualistic thinking is a sickness. Religion is a distortion. Materialism is cruel. Blind spirituality is unreal."

Hehehe. You and Lao Tzu have got your own thing going, don't you?

 

I pretty much agree with what you said though.

[Vmarco]

Hehehe. You and Lao Tzu have got your own thing going, don't you?

 

I pretty much agree with what you said though.

Me and Lao Tzu would be great buds if he was physically among us

[Marblehead]

Hi Nikolai1,

 

I think your view is much broader than the commonly accepted view of "without contrived action", but if it works for you then what more could I say?

 

Lao Tzu suggested that we avoid extremes, and this would include the extremes of ego and desires.

 

But sure, start a thread on these extremes and see what happens.

Edited March 24, 2013 by Marblehead

[三江源]

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Edited March 30, 2015 by 三江源

[Nikolai1]

 

Although there were several insights, like the problem with fear, in the top post,...what was not mentioned is the necessity of letting go of all hope,...because fear will always persists as long as their is hope.

 

Great point and I entirely agree. To be in fear or hope is to be emotionally concerned with future outcomes in a way that will destry present peace.. The trust of the person with wu wei not only banishes fear, but it also prevents them from expecting more from the future than they are getting right now. It makes you realise that fear and hope are pretty much the same thing.

 

Best wishes, nikolai

Edited March 24, 2013 by Nikolai1