What is wu-wei? Wu-wei means, literally, without action. This is difficult for many beginners to understand, especially those in what is increasingly loosely called the West; but, in fact, it is not such an alien concept, as I hope to be able to illustrate. It does not mean, as many assume, 'do nothing'. It means to act without contrived action and may be reasonably interpreted as 'effortless flow'.
In 1988, the Brazilian Grand Prix driver, Ayrton Senna, drove twelve qualifying laps around the narrow and especially dangerous Monte Carlo circuit. Not only were those laps exceptionally fast, they were relentlessly similar to each other. Every lap was within a few hundredths of second of all the others. That's an extraordinary feat, even for someone of his legendary genius. When asked after how he had done it he said he did not know; moreover, he could not even remember. He had been, he said, in a sort of trance and the car took the corners as if on rails. Not knowing what he had experienced, and given that motor sport is a dangerous pursuit, he vowed never again to allow himself to slip into such a mental state at least until he understood more about it. What Senna had experienced was wu-wei. His thoughts ceased and his actions flowed from him naturally. Just as a tree that sways in the wind is not making any contrived effort to move, so, that day, he had been made to 'sway'; not by the wind, but by Tao.
Sportsmen and women most commonly call this state of mind the 'zone'. The man generally regarded as the world's greatest soccer star, Pele, described the feeling thus: I felt a strange calmness . . . a kind of euphoria. I felt I could run all day without tiring, that I could dribble through any of their team or all of them, that I could almost pass through them physically.
Other testimonies describe a state where thinking stops and times appears to slow down. The crowd noise mutes and every action springs from natural instinct and is perfect. Musicians, artists and writers have also spoken at length about what they call the 'creative flow'. And I am sure everyone reading this has experienced the sensation of completing a task or reaching a destination and having no memory of how they had done so.
The ancient Taoists identified this state of mind; and rather than view it as an odd sensation that comes and goes, like deja vu, they recognised in it something that could be cultivated and experienced continually. With a calm mind, unfettered by uncontrolled thought, attachment to outcome, judgement and pre-conceived, contrived action, the natural flow of Tao may guide our actions.
But there is no need to read ancient and crumbling texts for examples of those who could attain such a state at will. Vernon Kitabu Turner, a self-taught martial artist born in 1948, in a true event that has taken on the mystique of urban legend, despatched a number of Black Belts in double quick time using only a finger!
In an interview with What is Enlightenment? magazine, Turner said: "When I stand on the mat rooted in the grace of this awesome experience and see my opponents fly through the air and fall at my feet without conscious effort on my part, when I feel my body rise and fall like the cosmic breath, I am humbled by life. I realize that somehow, mysteriously, I am a partaker of something greater than I can comprehend."
He maintains that it is not he who knows what his opponent will do; that knowledge belongs to a 'higher place' which guides him.
But we are not all Grand Prix drivers, soccer stars and martial artists; or artists of any other kind. How can wu-wei help the ordinary person? We have all been faced with difficult situations where we later remarked that we had not known what to do for the best. Whether at work or at home, we can be torn between acting one way or another with no experience upon which to base our decision. Often, though we eventually acted out of the very best of intentions, those actions backfire and we are made to lament the fact we did not go with our gut instinct.
At such times there is no right or wrong way to act. What might appear to be the most obvious course to take might just lead to disaster and vice-versa. Next time you find yourself on the horns of just such a dilemma, disengage your brain. Stop and breathe and listen to your heart. There is no need to pore over the sum total of your past experiences. Those experiences are there. Just as a good golf swing is programmed into your muscle memory, so your experiences are ingrained. Or, to borrow from Bruce Lee: Learn technique, practice technique, forget technique.
This may be applied to passing a driving test, sitting an exam, learning to play the piano, pruning a rose bush and just about anything else you can think of.
A key component to wu-wei is, I believe, patience. A few months ago, I decided to grow yarrow from seed, with the intention of using the fully grown stalks for divining the I Ching. I read up on the subject, bought a little, plastic greenhouse, seed trays and compost. I planted the seeds, kept them watered and waited.
And waited.
Days turned into weeks and nothing happened. Then, a brief cold snap triggered the seeds to germinate and shortly after, the first shoots appeared. This taught me that I ought to have trusted that I had done everything I needed to do and been happy to simply wait for nature to do the rest. At that stage, no amount of cajoling was going to speed up the process.
I immediately saw the metaphor this provided for my life: in our personal relationships and in our work, we must lay the ground work for both to flourish. Once that is done, we need only to wait, trusting both our own efforts and the natural processes that are, at any given moment, evolving naturally from the seeds we have planted.
Ayrton Senna, Pele and Vernon Kitabu Turner each laid the ground work for their skills to flourish. They practiced physically and mentally; and when it came to the time when they needed to perform, they trusted their preprations and patiently allowed the seeds they planted in themselves to germinate and become action.
In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu said much about the importance of wu-wei:
Act without contrivance
And nothing will be beyond control and
The Tao is constant in non-action
Yet there is nothing it does not do
Both these quotes, among many others, make clear that when action without contrivance is taken then the possibilities are endless. The Tao, ultimately wise and infinitely compassionate, when allowed to flow through us not opposed and replaced with our own, limited ideas can guide us to take truly enlightened actions whether we are enlightened or not.
