How to Avoid Crippling Passivity in Taosim

[Marblehead]

While I fully agree with others on this thread that wu wei doesn't really mean avoiding action, there is in fact a discrepancy between the very spontaneous way of life suggested especially by Chuang Tzu, and the purposeful planning that Sun Tzu recommends. Alright, the latter in a war manual - which, however, is a Daoist text nevertheless and supposedly of use for all kinds of situations. I'm sure there is a way to bridge that gap - if you know the secret, do share it with me, please.

Yes, there is a bridge.  I have no idea, at the moment, how to share it.  (There is more compatibility between the two than first meets the eye.)

[Brian]

While I fully agree with others on this thread that wu wei doesn't really mean avoiding action, there is in fact a discrepancy between the very spontaneous way of life suggested especially by Chuang Tzu, and the purposeful planning that Sun Tzu recommends. Alright, the latter in a war manual - which, however, is a Daoist text nevertheless and supposedly of use for all kinds of situations. I'm sure there is a way to bridge that gap - if you know the secret, do share it with me, please.

I think the "bridge" is found in the old aphorism -- "carry water, chop wood."

 

One doesn't indiscriminately "chop wood" without regard for the nature of the wood or the need for wood to be chopped (among other things) nor does one simply start carrying water without intent. When it is appropriate (which implies contemplation, judgment and planning), one carries water in a sensible fashion (again, not determined without some deliberation) to a pre-selected destination (ibid) until one has carried enough (ditto) and then one stops. While carrying the water, though, one focuses simply on the task at hand. Similarly with chopping wood, there is planning ahead of time and judgment throughout but the task of chopping wood should be conducted with single-mindedness rather than accompanied by navel-gazing.

[Brian]

As an aside, I will point out that most of the readers of this thread have probably never been in a situation where they needed to carry water or chop wood. It changes one's perspective on such things.

[Marblehead]

Chopping wood and carrying water is relatively straight forward and easily done.

 

It is more challenging to chop water and carry wood.

[Brian]

Chopping wood and carrying water is relatively straight forward and easily done.

 

It is more challenging to chop water and carry wood.

I actually say it that way about half the time -- I had to check myself when I wrote it...

 

BTW, I've done that, too. Lived for several years in a log cabin with spring water and a wood stove. Pipe running down the mountain would freeze in extreme cold and we'd take an ax to the surface of the stream to get water for flushing toilets (and then have to carry it), and we would spend many days during the Fall cutting deadfalls on the mountain, hauling them down the hill and then chopping some more...

[Wu Ming Jen]

A Master Chef does not boil water because fire boils water. A Master carpenter does not cut wood because metal cuts wood.

Doing without contrivance is wu wei, exactly how nature gets things done.

 

Are the dishes being washed or are you doing the dishes? I find doing things without attachment of self, things just get done without mental resistance.

 

In martial arts giving up self and following others makes movement efficient. In doing what we love we find the zone there seems to be no sense of self, yet self is whole, in harmony with movement without resistance.

 

Movement gives birth to stillness, stillness gives birth to movement, who can be still as mountain and move like a great river.

[Michael Sternbach]

Are the dishes being washed or are you doing the dishes? I find doing things without attachment of self, things just get done without mental resistance.

 

In martial arts giving up self and following others makes movement efficient. In doing what we love we find the zone there seems to be no sense of self, yet self is whole, in harmony with movement without resistance.

Yes. The problem are rather the things that we don't love to do, yet feel obliged to do. I have experienced resistanceless states when I could do unloved, overdue things one by one like some kind of automaton, but found it unsatisfactory, somehow.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Wu Ming Jen]

I hear what you are saying, there is duty which we do not seek joy. Having the ability to perform such task is a great thing.

[Karl]

For about the umpteenth time, I suggest reading Feynman...

 

Yeah but 'thrifty' ? I can't believe Feyman actually used that phrase.

 

What's more you want me to read all of Feynmans immense output, all his papers and books ? For what purpose ? I probably wouldn't understand more than a few percent at most. I've never been great at maths, barely passable, so you might as well tell a monkey to read nuclear physics for all the help it would be. :-)

[Brian]

Yeah but 'thrifty' ? I can't believe Feyman actually used that phrase. What's more you want me to read all of Feynmans immense output, all his papers and books ? For what purpose ? I probably wouldn't understand more than a few percent at most. I've never been great at maths, barely passable, so you might as well tell a monkey to read nuclear physics for all the help it would be. :-)

I identified the source of that sentence... <shrug>

 

I also linked to a specific lecture on precisely the topic at hand, targeted at college freshmen.

 

<shrug>

[hod]

I apologize for addressing the OP after all this great conversation - but driving the other day I had a good analogy pop into my head about the workings of wuwei.

 

Say you are driving on a  small side street that intersects a large busy street. You want to turn right onto this busy street, but there are no major gaps in traffic or traffic lights nearby that will create a major gap in traffic. To take the right turn onto the busy street, you will have to fit your car into one of the small gaps between cars in the closest lane.

 

If by taking your right turn onto the busy street, you cause any of the cars already on it to slow down or have to switch lanes to avoid hitting you, then you have NOT acted with wuwei. But if you can merge onto that busy street without causing any of the cars to slow down, change lanes or even notice you turning onto their street, you have acted WITH wuwei.

 

Why this analogy stuck out to me is that fact that making that right turn is taking action. Waiting at the turn forever without acting is what the OP was afraid of, but wuwei isn't telling you to not take the turn. What it's saying is, take the turn, just don't mess with the flow of traffic.

 

Now you may return to the conversation at hand.

[Brian]

I apologize for addressing the OP after all this great conversation - but driving the other day I had a good analogy pop into my head about the workings of wuwei.

 

Say you are driving on a small side street that intersects a large busy street. You want to turn right onto this busy street, but there are no major gaps in traffic or traffic lights nearby that will create a major gap in traffic. To take the right turn onto the busy street, you will have to fit your car into one of the small gaps between cars in the closest lane.

 

If by taking your right turn onto the busy street, you cause any of the cars already on it to slow down or have to switch lanes to avoid hitting you, then you have NOT acted with wuwei. But if you can merge onto that busy street without causing any of the cars to slow down, change lanes or even notice you turning onto their street, you have acted WITH wuwei.

 

Why this analogy stuck out to me is that fact that making that right turn is taking action. Waiting at the turn forever without acting is what the OP was afraid of, but wuwei isn't telling you to not take the turn. What it's saying is, take the turn, just don't mess with the flow of traffic.

 

Now you may return to the conversation at hand.

Yes! We move in accord with the Tao when we ride convenient waves and flow with the currents when they flow our way. We can choose to do otherwise but the need to do so diminishes as our perception & awareness expanded. With time and practice, we remember that we knew this all along.

[Karl]

I identified the source of that sentence...

I also linked to a specific lecture on precisely the topic at hand, targeted at college freshmen.

 

Straight over my head. No idea what that was all about. Just acres of confusing equations which mean little or nothing to me. Sorry, I'm going to stick with what I can understand.

[Brian]

Straight over my head. No idea what that was all about. Just acres of confusing equations which mean little or nothing to me. Sorry, I'm going to stick with what I can understand.

Dang! Sorry, Karl. Seriously. I didn't think that one was particularly intractable but it did come fairly late in the series (actually, I said it was aimed at freshmen but that one fell in the second year so it was aimed at sophomores instead).

 

Did anyone else follow that link? Does it really seem so obtuse?

[Karl]

Dang! Sorry, Karl. Seriously. I didn't think that one was particularly intractable but it did come fairly late in the series (actually, I said it was aimed at freshmen but that one fell in the second year so it was aimed at sophomores instead).

Did anyone else follow that link? Does it really seem so obtuse?

 

Yes, I was nodding after about 3 paragraphs. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to get perhaps a 1/3rd of the way through then all the springs, cogs and sawdust flew out of my head. I remember such nightmares during electromagnetic field theory. The tutor would give us a problem which sounded simple. Magnetic field, particle on a string scenario. I truly thought I had it in about 6 lines and had several fellows agreeing with me. After 4 entire black boards full of tiny, almost indecipherable scribble I knew for certain I was better at wiring control cubicles than particle physics. Just too dumb I guess.

[Brian]

<snip>

Just too dumb I guess.

Not at all! I would definitely not say that. In fact, you demonstrate just the opposite. Instead, I'd just say "different" -- we all have differing talents and abilities, different strengths and weaknesses, and things which may simply "click" for one person may not be in another's bag of tricks.

 

We change over time, though, and sometimes things which were not appetizing in our youth become more so at another place in our journeys while the reverse is also true.

 

EDIT: Don't know whether you looked at the end but there was a little (nonmathematical) note which you might find intriguing:

19–2A note added after the lecture

 

 

“I should like to add something that I didn’t have time for in the lecture. (I always seem to prepare more than I have time to tell about.) As I mentioned earlier, I got interested in a problem while working on this lecture. I want to tell you what that problem is. Among the minimum principles that I could mention, I noticed that most of them sprang in one way or another from the least action principle of mechanics and electrodynamics. But there is also a class that does not. As an example, if currents are made to go through a piece of material obeying Ohm’s law, the currents distribute themselves inside the piece so that the rate at which heat is generated is as little as possible. Also we can say (if things are kept isothermal) that the rate at which energy is generated is a minimum. Now, this principle also holds, according to classical theory, in determining even the distribution of velocities of the electrons inside a metal which is carrying a current. The distribution of velocities is not exactly the equilibrium distribution [Chapter 40, Vol. I, Eq. (40.6)] because they are drifting sideways. The new distribution can be found from the principle that it is the distribution for a given current for which the entropy developed per second by collisions is as small as possible. The true description of the electrons’ behavior ought to be by quantum mechanics, however. The question is: Does the same principle of minimum entropy generation also hold when the situation is described quantum-mechanically? I haven’t found out yet.

 

 

“The question is interesting academically, of course. Such principles are fascinating, and it is always worth while to try to see how general they are. But also from a more practical point of view, I want to know. I, with some colleagues, have published a paper in which we calculated by quantum mechanics approximately the electrical resistance felt by an electron moving through an ionic crystal like NaCl. [Feynman, Hellwarth, Iddings, and Platzman, “Mobility of Slow Electrons in a Polar Crystal,” Phys. Rev. 127, 1004 (1962).] But if a minimum principle existed, we could use it to make the results much more accurate, just as the minimum principle for the capacity of a condenser permitted us to get such accuracy for that capacity even though we had only a rough knowledge of the electric field.”

[Brian]

As an aside:

[Karl]

Not at all! I would definitely not say that. In fact, you demonstrate just the opposite. Instead, I'd just say "different" -- we all have differing talents and abilities, different strengths and weaknesses, and things which may simply "click" for one person may not be in another's bag of tricks.We change over time, though, and sometimes things which were not appetizing in our youth become more so at another place in our journeys while the reverse is also true.EDIT: Don't know whether you looked at the end but there was a little (nonmathematical) note which you might find intriguing:

Nope, it's not happening. I'm just not interested in those things. They seem over complex explanations that I cannot relate to life. If it's economics or philosophy I'm fine, but mathematical concepts and abstractions seem remote.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Karl

[topaz]

While I fully agree with others on this thread that wu wei doesn't really mean avoiding action, there is in fact a discrepancy between the very spontaneous way of life suggested especially by Chuang Tzu, and the purposeful planning that Sun Tzu recommends. Alright, the latter in a war manual - which, however, is a Daoist text nevertheless and supposedly of use for all kinds of situations. I'm sure there is a way to bridge that gap - if you know the secret, do share it with me, please.

No, there is no way to bridge that gap. You cannot be a warrior, especially one working for the state as Sun Tzu was, and be a Taoist no matter how many old yuppies and careerists try to make it so. The story of old Shu advises as much. 

[topaz]

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." F. Scott Fitzgerald

One the contrary, that is the mark of an idiot. Like, it's not ok to murder torture defraud plunder, but when the government does it, it's suddenly ok. 

[topaz]

If by taking your right turn onto the busy street, you cause any of the cars already on it to slow down or have to switch lanes to avoid hitting you, then you have NOT acted with wuwei. But if you can merge onto that busy street without causing any of the cars to slow down, change lanes or even notice you turning onto their street, you have acted WITH wuwei.

So if the world is marching in lockstep acting like bloodthirsty myopic fools, as they always do, then we do the same?

 

Why this analogy stuck out to me is that fact that making that right turn is taking action. Waiting at the turn forever without acting is what the OP was afraid of, but wuwei isn't telling you to not take the turn. What it's saying is, take the turn, just don't mess with the flow of traffic.

I thought this was what Laozi was doing, leaving civilized China to go to a place where there were no such busy streets.

[Geof Nanto]

I apologize for addressing the OP after all this great conversation - but driving the other day I had a good analogy pop into my head about the workings of wuwei.

 

Say you are driving on a  small side street that intersects a large busy street. You want to turn right onto this busy street, but there are no major gaps in traffic or traffic lights nearby that will create a major gap in traffic. To take the right turn onto the busy street, you will have to fit your car into one of the small gaps between cars in the closest lane.

 

If by taking your right turn onto the busy street, you cause any of the cars already on it to slow down or have to switch lanes to avoid hitting you, then you have NOT acted with wuwei. But if you can merge onto that busy street without causing any of the cars to slow down, change lanes or even notice you turning onto their street, you have acted WITH wuwei.

 

Why this analogy stuck out to me is that fact that making that right turn is taking action. Waiting at the turn forever without acting is what the OP was afraid of, but wuwei isn't telling you to not take the turn. What it's saying is, take the turn, just don't mess with the flow of traffic.

 

Now you may return to the conversation at hand.

 

For me this is not a good illustration of Daoist wu wei. It's more a Confucian interpretation of wu wei in that it's about harmony within existing human society. Daoist wu wei is about harmony with the Dao and that may or may not coincide with any given societal organisation.  

[Marblehead]

... and flow with the currents ...

But if you see or hear a waterfall ahead you better start swimming.

[Marblehead]

No, there is no way to bridge that gap. You cannot be a warrior, especially one working for the state as Sun Tzu was, and be a Taoist no matter how many old yuppies and careerists try to make it so. The story of old Shu advises as much. 

I will simply disagree without going into detail.

[Michael Sternbach]

My best take on that discrepancy so far is trying to program my subconscious with the tasks I am supposed to do while letting them go consciously. My subconscious will then ideally navigate me to take care of each of them at the most suitable moment.