What’s the meaning of doing without doing?

[Ervin]

In Tao te Ching is written to accomplish everything without doing anything.

i don’t understand it, can someone explain it to me please?

 

thanks

[Salvijus]

For the universal intelligence to move through you, you (ego) have to step away.  "not my will, but thy will be done" 

 

The statement should read. "without any personal/egoic will (fear, control, manipulation)… life is unfolding in miraculous ways in perfect harmony" 

 

Edited June 15 by Salvijus

[Taoist Texts]

3 hours ago, Salvijus said:

universal intelligence

There is no such thing . if there were there  would be no evil in the world. 

6 hours ago, Ervin said:

In Tao te Ching is written to accomplish everything without doing anything.

i don’t understand it, can someone explain it to me please?

Doing is jumping into the water and trying to catch fish with your bare hands .

Not doing is angling for fish with the bait and the hook.

[Salvijus]

53 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

There is no such thing . if there were there  would be no evil in the world

 

The existence of evil has nothing to do with the existence of universal intelligence. The spiritual and physical principles(dharma) that govern all life. 

 

53 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

Doing is jumping into the water and trying to catch fish with your bare hands .

Not doing is angling for fish with the bait and the hook.

 

This reminds me of Alan Watts quote. 

 

 “Life is most skillfully lived when one sails a boat rather than rowing it. It’s more intelligent to sail than to row.”  

 

Which is what i meant by letting go of force (personal will) and allowing of the universal intelligence(currents of life) to take care of you. 

Edited June 15 by Salvijus

[idiot_stimpy]

7 hours ago, Ervin said:

In Tao te Ching is written to accomplish everything without doing anything.

i don’t understand it, can someone explain it to me please?

 

thanks

 

You don't understand, but you're trying to understand. By trying to understand, you are exerting effort to understand. 

 

Doing without doing or accomplishing everything without doing anything, means to do something without exerting any effort at all. 

 

Effortless action. An action that does not require or need effort in any direction.

 

Edited June 15 by idiot_stimpy

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, idiot_stimpy said:

 

 

In other words,

 

[CozySpace]

Practically speaking, I think it refers taking a more receptive approach to life. Respond to the events that unfold in your life with an open mind as opposed to being narrow minded and trying to force your personal narrative. In short: Chill out.

[Taomeow]

To give a more classical answer, here's a quote:

"The sage comes like the spring, benefitting all beings."  Contemplate the coming of spring (e.g.).  Doing nothing, accomplishing everything. 

 

Put a spoonful of sugar in your cup of coffee, it will transform your beverage without doing anything, by just being what it is.

[Salvijus]

@Taoist Texts

 

If only laughter was enough to make a point, you'd be a genius... 

Edited June 15 by Salvijus

[wstein]

Doing is you taking an action and there is a result.

 

Without doing, you are there, actions occur, results appear. However 'you' didn't do or cause any of the action or results. This can be confusing at first because sometimes some of the actions involve your body. If you are still identified with your physical form, you might assume (incorrectly) that 'you' took the action.

[ChiDragon]

On 6/14/2024 at 7:41 PM, Ervin said:

In Tao te Ching is written to accomplish everything without doing anything.

i don’t understand it, can someone explain it to me please?

 

thanks

The interpration of the term wu wei(無為), in the Tao Te Ching, simply means do nothing to interfere with nature. In other words, let nature take its course.

[exorcist_1699]

When people come across troubles and adversities, how can  they do to overcome ? Most of them will try using the knowledge , experiences and material assets they get , working out some plans to solve them . On the other hand, some may adopt  lessening ,even getting rid of their expectations or desires, so as to make them feel better, another way of solving their troubles . In fact, we can have some Zen's  formulae , as  we get in  other disciplines , to treat them :

 

1) "Eliminate the ego, not eliminate the scenarios( those  difficulties and adversities ) " ("奪 人不奪境" ). As there is no ego, to where those worries or sufferings hooked to ?

 

2) " Eliminate those scenarios , not the ego" ( " 奪境不奪人 " )

 

3)"Eliminate both the scenarios and the ego " (" 人境俱奪")

 

4) "Eliminate neither the scenarios nor the ego "  ("人境俱不奪") .

 

Capable of entering the Universal or Ontological mind/ Consciousness , the core ,  as   4) refers to ,
enables us to 'make use' of  no-Mind  to deal with all things and matters in non-doing way ;  it is only those people whose consciousness are always staying at the surface , far from the core ,  do they get the necessities of raising varied of ideas and  emotions , or expressed in their look pretty  terms: tactics or strategy , to solve problems . Below is an atom-like model of people's mind :

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 24 by exorcist_1699

[Mark Foote]

On 6/14/2024 at 7:41 PM, Ervin said:

In Tao te Ching is written to accomplish everything without doing anything.

i don’t understand it, can someone explain it to me please?

 

thanks
 

 

 

Bear with me, Ervin.

 

Elsewhere on Dao Bums, someone wrote:

 

Even if you have no identity, you still exist. As what? The spirituality that I follow would say “as existence”, or “as pure consciousness”.

 

 

I was reminded of Nisargadatta, a famous teacher who lived in India in the last century:

 

You are not your body, but you are the consciousness in the body, because of which you have the awareness of “I am”. It is without words, just pure beingness. Meditation means you have to hold consciousness by itself. The consciousness should give attention to itself.

 

(Gaitonde, Mohan [2017]. Self – Love: The Original Dream [Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Direct Pointers to Reality]. Mumbai: Zen Publications. ISBN 978-9385902833)

 

 

“The consciousness should give attention to itself”—in thirteenth-century Japan, Eihei Dogen wrote:

 

Therefore, …take the backward step of turning the light and shining it back.

 

(“Fukan zazengi” Tenpuku version; tr. Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, p 176)

 

 

That’s a poetic way to say “the consciousness should give attention to itself”.

 

I used to talk about the location of consciousness, but a friend of mine would always respond that for him, consciousness has no specific location. As a result, I switched to writing about the placement of attention:

 

There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.

 

(A Way of Living)

 

 

In his “Genjo Koan”, Dogen wrote:

 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

 

(“Genjo Koan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point]”, tr. Tanahashi)

 

 

Given a presence of mind that can “hold consciousness by itself”, activity in the body begins to coordinate by virtue of the sense of place associated with consciousness.  A relationship between the free location of consciousness and activity in the body comes forward, and as that relationship comes forward, “practice occurs”.  Through such practice, the placement of consciousness is manifested in the activity of the body.

 

Dogen continued:

 

When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point…

 

(ibid)

 

 

“When you find your way at this moment”, activity takes place solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness. A relationship between the freedom of consciousness and the automatic activity of the body comes forward, and as that relationship comes forward, practice occurs. Through such practice, the placement of consciousness is manifested as the activity of the body.

 

I sit down first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and I look to experience the activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness. As a matter of daily life, just to touch on such experience as occasion demands—for me, that’s enough.

 

("Take the Backward Step")

 

 

And now I can address "to accomplish everything without doing anything":

 

Dogen also wrote:

 

Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

 

(ibid)

 

 

I once heard Kobun Chino Otogawa close a lecture at the San Francisco Zen Center by saying:

 

 You know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around. 

 

 

Activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness can sometimes get up and walk around, without any thought to do so. 

 

Action like that resembles action that takes place through hypnotic suggestion, but unlike action by hypnotic suggestion, action by virtue of the free location of consciousness can turn out to be timely after the fact.  When action turns out to accord with future events in an uncanny way, the source of that action may well be described as “the inconceivable”.

 

I have found that zazen is more likely to “get up and walk around” when the free location of consciousness is accompanied by an extension of compassion, an extension out beyond the boundaries of the senses.

 

Gautama spoke of such an extension.  He described “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of compassion and sympathetic joy through the four quarters of the world, as well as above and below--an extension without limit.  That “excellence of the heart’s release”, he said, was a state of concentration called “the infinity of consciousness”.

 

Perhaps that’s why my friend feels that consciousness has no location—he’s tuned in, somehow, to the experience of “the infinity of consciousness”.

 

Nevertheless, when Gautama addressed the wanderer Udayin, he said:

 

Udayin, as an emerald jewel, of all good qualities, might be strung on a thread, blue-green or yellow or red or white or orange coloured; and a [person] with vision, having put it in [their] hand, might reflect; ‘this emerald jewel… is strung on a thread, blue-green… or orange-coloured’–even so, Udayin, a course has been pointed out by me for disciples, practising which disciples of mine know thus: This body of mine… is of a nature to be constantly rubbed away… and scattered, but this consciousness is fastened there, bound there….

 

 

(work in progress, for my website)

 

 

The actualization of the inconceivable is the doing without a doer:

 

(For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body.
 

(MN III 18-19, Pali Text Society III pg 68)

 

 

Edited June 18 by Mark Foote

[Sahaja]

On 6/14/2024 at 9:41 PM, Ervin said:

In Tao te Ching is written to accomplish everything without doing anything.

i don’t understand it, can someone explain it to me please?

 

thanks

My understanding of it is that wu Wei means non governance. The authors believed that if humans try to govern things (control things through application of their goals, desires, intentions) they by definition eventually screw them up.

While this can be seen as a response to the history/politics of the time, it is most fundamentally applicable to cultivation practice at the level of the individual. The key is to let go of this governance during one’s practice. the tools of attention without intention, ting/listening (receptive awareness without the coloring of discursive thought), and song (release of physical and mental tension) are used. Governance and tension are closely related. Intention can be viewed as being in tension. Release of tension frees up energy.

 

When this is done natural processes arise that are aligned with the thing/non-thing that is behind all phenomena. On an experiential level the more governance (and tension)  is reduced the more qi arises. . initially (and likely for a long time) this is not a binary situation but rather a scale of how much governance is applied. The skill and qi  developed in practice becomes available outside the practice resulting in better efficiency and alignment with the thing/non-thing behind all phenomena. .
 

[Mark Foote]

8 hours ago, Sahaja said:

... The key is to let go of this governance during one’s practice. the tools of attention without intention, ting/listening (receptive awareness without the coloring of discursive thought), and song (release of physical and mental tension) are used....
 

 

 

The classic literature of Tai Chi appears to identify the ligaments of the body as a source of activity.  The literature describes three levels in the development of “ch’i”, a word that literally translates as “breath” but in practice is taken to refer to a fundamental energy of the body, and each of the three levels has three stages.

 

The stages of the first level are:

 

“… relaxing the ligaments from the shoulder to the wrist”; “from the hip joint to the heel”; “from the sacrum to the headtop”.   

 

(“Three Levels” from “Cheng Tzu’s Thirteen Treatises on Ta’i Chi Chuan”, Cheng Man Ch’ing, trans. Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo and Martin Inn, p 77-78)

 

 

Unlike the contraction and relaxation of muscles, the stretch and resile of ligaments can’t be voluntarily controlled.  The muscles across the joints can, however, be relaxed in such a way as to allow the natural stretch and resile of ligaments–that would seem to be the meaning of the advice to “relax the ligaments”. 

 

The stages of the second level are:

 

“sinking ch’i to the tan t’ien” (a point below and behind the navel); “the ch’i reaches the arms and legs”; “the ch’i moves through the sacrum (wei lu) to the top of the head (ni wan)”.  

 

(ibid)

 

 

Tai Ch’i master Cheng Man Ch’ing advised that the ch’i will collect at the tan-t’ien until it overflows into the tailbone and transits to the top of the head, but he warned against any attempt to force the flow.

 

I would posit that the patterns in the development of ch’i reflect involuntary activity of the body generated in the stretch of ligaments. There is, in addition, a possible mechanism of support for the spine from the displacement of the fascia behind the spine, a displacement that can be effected by pressure generated in the abdominal cavity and that may quite possibly depend on a push on the fascia behind the sacrum by the bulk of the extensor muscles, as they contract.

. 

The final level in the development of ch’i concerns “chin”.  According to the classics, “chin comes from the ligaments” (ibid). 

 

The three stages of the final level are:

 

“t’ing chin, listening to or feeling strength”; “comprehension of chin”; “omnipotence”.   

 

(ibid)

 

 

Another translator rendered the last stage above as “perfect clarity” (17). In my estimation, “perfect clarity” is the activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness.

 

(A Way of Living)

 

 

Edited June 21 by Mark Foote

[Sahaja]

14 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Tai Ch’i master Cheng Man Ch’ing advised that the ch’i will collect at the tan-t’ien until it overflows into the tailbone and transits to the top of the head, but he warned against any attempt to force the flow.

When the chi is ready to move into this circulation, it will move on its own.  Pressure builds up and can be felt triggering the movement. It’s not subtle and it manifests very distinctly at the physical level deep in the body. The body knows what to do. No mind intent required. just “listen” and appreciate how amazing the natural intelligence of the body can be. 
. 

 

 

[thelerner]

Perhaps a practical aspect is when a problem comes up, being present, acting wisely with awareness we can solve things and it's no big deal.  No attachment or drama.  

[Mark Foote]

On 6/22/2024 at 5:37 AM, Sahaja said:

When the chi is ready to move into this circulation, it will move on its own.  Pressure builds up and can be felt triggering the movement. It’s not subtle and it manifests very distinctly at the physical level deep in the body. The body knows what to do. No mind intent required. just “listen” and appreciate how amazing the natural intelligence of the body can be. 
. 

 

 

I agree.  My best attempt at an explanation of chi moving the body:

 

The centrifugal force at the place of awareness can find an equal and opposite response from everything that surrounds the place of awareness. That response feels a lot like blocking a judo throw, and between the centrifugal force and the block, stretch is generated.

 

What I feel reminds me of Gautama’s analogy for the first meditative state:

 

… as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so (one) steeps, drenches, fills and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease.

 

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19)
 

 

If I were kneading soap powder into a ball in a copper vessel, I would have one hand kneading soap and one hand on the vessel. The press of the hand kneading soap would find something of an opposite pressure from the hand holding the vessel, even if the bottom of the vessel were resting on the ground. That’s what I feel when the centrifugal force at the place of awareness finds a response from everything that surrounds the place of awareness.

 

... As I sit with Tohei’s emphasis on centrifugal force, I realize that for me the exercise becomes in part the distinction of the direction of turn that I’m feeling at the location of awareness, and that distinction allows the appropriate counter from everything that surrounds the place of awareness.

As a baseball pitcher extends his target through the catcher’s mitt, or a karate practitioner extends his target through the board or brick that he or she is about to break, the balance of centrifugal force and counterforce can depend on the inclusion of what lies beyond the senses in the stretch.

... If the mind of friendliness, of compassion, of sympathetic joy, or of equanimity is extended throughout the four quarters of the world, above and below, then the centrifugal force at the location of awareness and the counterforce can involve things that lie beyond the boundaries of the senses, and change in the balance of force and counterforce can initiate change in the carriage of the body without conscious volition.

 

(Tohei’s Four Points of Ki Aikido)

 

 

Omori Sogen on centrifugal and centripetal forces at play:

 

Thus, by means of the equilibrium of the centrifugal and the centripetal force, the whole body is brought to a state of zero and spiritual power will pervade the whole body intensely.

 

(“An Introduction to Zen Training”, Omori Sogen, p 61)