A Science of Wu Wei?

[OldDog]

51 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

8 hours ago, wandelaar said:

according to Slingerland there is no superior foolproof method to achieve wu wei. 

 

 

Better leave that to the Daoist practitioners...

 

 

I think it would be presumptuous of Slingerland to make such a statement. Such absolute statements should always be suspect.

 

It is one thing to recognize a phenomenon and quite another to assume to know whether it is or isn't capable of being of being achieved. While analogues to wu wei in western philosophy no doubt exist ... since we are talking about a phenomenon that all humans have potential to achieve ... daoists are somewhat unique in that they have pursued it and developed methods for reliably being able to approach it. Success would depend on the individual student and natural abilities.

 

Wu wei would seem to be a subjective experience and not one that would easily lend itself to validation. 

[Marblehead]

2 minutes ago, OldDog said:

Wu wei would seem to be a subjective experience and not one that would easily lend itself to validation. 

Subjective based on how it is defined subjectively.

 

[rene]

20 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

No - we will not! Wu wei is a human phenomenon, and no ethnic, religious or esoteric group has to right to monopolise its study, investigation and cultivation.

...

 

 

The idea of WuWei is a human phenomenom... all other things manifest just are & do it.

Ziran. TzuJan. Self-so-ing.

 

Studying, investigating, cultivating WuWei is like staying drunk to avoid drinking.

 

[wandelaar]

Just now, rene said:

Studying, investigating, cultivating WuWei is like staying drunk to avoid drinking.

 

Depends on the person. I am the sort of guy that wants to know what he is getting into before he takes the next step.

[Marblehead]

But sometimes it's fun to just jump in and get all wet.

 

[wandelaar]

Sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it isn't.

[Marblehead]

Just now, wandelaar said:

Sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it isn't.

After the fact doesn't matter.  It's the experience that matters.

 

[Zhongyongdaoist]

3 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

Quote

 

1 Those who can transform even a single thing, call them "numinous";

 

2 Those who can alter even a single situation, call them "wise."

 

1 and 2 are hopelessly bad translations

 

Quote

 

3 But to transform without expending  altering vital energy; to alter without

expending  altering wisdom:

 

4 Only exemplary persons  a king who  only by holding fast to the One are able

to do this.

 

3 and 4 are just bad 

 

5 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

is practically a description of wu wei and ...... very close to the notion of the "unchanged changer" of Aristotle

this is correct, yes quite close

 

I'm not a big fan of Roth myself, however his book is probably the most common version available and part of the reason for the popular interest in Neyye, so I quote him.  Right now I don't want to get bogged down in details and we agree on the basic point that the passage is "practically a description of wu wei and ...... very close to the notion of the "unchanged changer" of Aristotle".  This is not the place for textual analysis, though I may pull some of the Chinese characters out of the text for closer examination down the road.  The purpose of the citations was simply to establish a possible relation between ancient Chinese concepts and those of Aristotle to see if anything in Aristotle will be useful to modeling what the Chinese are trying to describe and help us understand better what is going on and how one might actually be able to achieve wu wei.

[wandelaar]

@ Marblehead

 

I just don't like jumping into the unknown. But I do like to understand how things work. So my preferred way is to first theoretically investigate things and depending on the results move on to getting involved or not.

Edited November 11, 2018 by wandelaar

[Marblehead]

16 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

@ Marblehead

 

I just don't like jumping into the unknown. But I do like to understand how things work. So my preferred way is to first theoretically investigate things and depending on the results move on to getting involved or not.

Yeah, I have picked up on that.  I have lived my life with little caution.  And it is true, I have made many mistakes.  Have had many heartbreaks.  But I have lived.

 

Sure, in my old age I am more like you but I still do that jumping now and then and, of course, continue to make mistakes.

 

All told, no regrets.  Sure, specifically, many regrets.  But regrets allow me to appreciate the successes in my live so much more.  For those I think, "Ah, I didn't screw that one up."

 

 

 

 

[wandelaar]

Well - I don't promote my way of life as the best thing one could do, but it's the way that best fits my character.

[OldDog]

Fair enough, my friend.

[rene]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

...but it's the way that best fits my character.

 

And that ^^^ is the core of WuWei.

(-:

[Taoist Texts]

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

5 hours ago, freeform said:

Better leave that to the Daoist practitioners...

 

Quote

No - we will not! Wu wei is a human phenomenon, and no ethnic, religious or esoteric group has the right to monopolise its study, investigation and cultivation.

 

oh you are welcome to investigate all you want, but with that attitude you will never understand, just like that author

 

Quote

Besides, Taoism itself contains widely divergent practices,  

divergent only to an outsider

 

Quote

 

wu wei isn't even an exclusively Taoist concept and phenomenon. So your suggestion is widely off the mark.

 

Sectarian claims on offering a superior foolproof method to achieve wu wei don't prove anything. 

 

using the sectarian terminology proves a lot

 

Edited November 12, 2018 by Taoist Texts

[wandelaar]

7 hours ago, rene said:

And that ^^^ is the core of WuWei.

(-:

 

And here is the paradox. I know what real wu wei (or better flow) feels like, because I experience it when dancing to the music I like (melodic rock). Which I don't do often there days because my own apartment is chock full of books (no space for dancing and jumping around), and I hate the music of today (such as house, "R&B", and Rap). So I like to find other ways to get some wu wei and/or flow back into my life.

[wandelaar]

@ Taoist texts

 

You are saying Slingerland doesn't know what he is talking about? If so - could you please say what makes you think so, instead of just posting empty accusations about "that author" ?

 

Edited November 12, 2018 by wandelaar

[Taoist Texts]

45 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

@ Taoist texts

 

You are saying Slingerland doesn't know what he is talking about? If so - could you please say what makes you think so, instead of just posting empty accusations about "that author" ?

 

Sure. At the beginning of Chpt 1 he quotes 2 ZZ stories of the cook and the woodcarver as prime examples of woo-wei.

https://books.google.nl/books?id=sTG0AAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Which is false indeed, because nowhere in these stories Zhuang-zi uses the word 无为. Here check for yourself,

https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/ens?searchu=无为

 

in fact ZZ uses that word 30 times only in his huge canon and these 2 stories are NOT among those occurrences.

 

Think about it for a sec, a guy has a PhD in ancient Chinese studies, made a great career in academics, but because he has new-agee books to sell, he stoops to such lame shell game. Sad, really.

[wandelaar]

Thank you, that gives us something to talk about.

 

So because Chuang tzu doesn't uses the characters 无为 he cannot have meant the phenomenon wu wei? Apparently you are more interested in the characters used than in the theories or visions propounded. A big part of Slingerland's work is devoted to demonstrating that the idea of wu wei is much more prevalent in ancient Chinese philosophy than would be expected by merely counting the prevalence of the characters 无为. The same thesis is defended in his scholarly works. So I don't consider your argument as proving your point.

[Taoist Texts]

1 minute ago, wandelaar said:

So because Chuang tzu doesn't uses the characters 无为 he cannot have meant the phenomenon wu wei?

Yes, he can not. To the new-agees words have no meaning so its impossible to prove anything to you guys).

 

What a honest scholar would do after quoting these 2 stories? He would say 'although the exact words are not there but I think..."  Of course nobody would buy his book then, because nobody is interested in his own thoughts. That is why he is lying by presenting his own opinion as that of Zhuang-zi. And that, my friend, makes him a quack.

[Taoist Texts]

Or, look at this

 

No, this is another lie. The character used is 

 

 

Quote

 

顺Trad. 順

shùn

to obey to follow to arrange to make reasonable along favorable

 

there is no flowing along, there is no flow.

 

 

 

The guy just makes up crap as he goes.

 

[wandelaar]

Apparently you don't like to be disproved, so you completely ignore my argument and you resort to name-calling. Well, find another Bum to insult, and have a nice day. Goodbye!

 

Edited November 12, 2018 by wandelaar

[wandelaar]

An interesting free article on wu wei and flow can be found here:

 

http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/phil390582.pdf

[Stosh]

On pg 682 Slingerland says he adopts the specific term of wu wei as an umbrella for various expressions of the phenomena. Which means he does not fixedly link the term to all instances of the phenomena , and one cannot count the number of usages to arrive at an assessment of the phenomena's import.

....according to Slingerland himself. 

[wandelaar]

@ Stosh

 

Thank you.

[Taoist Texts]

46 minutes ago, Stosh said:

Slingerland says he adopts the specific term of wu wei as an umbrella for various expressions of the phenomena

1. take a Chinese word wu-wei, declare that it means whatever you want it to mean

2. take a story from Zhuang-zi where Zhuang-zi does not say the story is about wu-wei, declare that you know better than Zhuang-zi what the Zhuang-zi story is about and the story is actually about wu-wei (despite there is no wu-wei in it)

3. sell books and lectures on wu-wei, PROFIT!

 

What can one say? A nice job if you can get it.