Introduction

Wu Wei (無爲) is what drew me to Taoism before I even knew what it was. “Do nothing but leave nothing undone.”

I didn’t know what it meant but it appealed to my slacker nature. I could “do nothing” and claim that I was “cultivating the Tao.” Do those dishes NEED to be done or is this merely a distraction from my spiritual work?

Unfortunately, the old sage was right, before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. You gotta do what you gotta do. Until I manage to secure an ashram full of sycophants I gotta handle my own chores.

Now accepting applications, you don’t even have to shave your head.

But even then, coordinating and tasking and entertaining all of these acolytes is a full time job in and of itself, so what would I really be gaining in the exercise? Wouldn’t it just be less hassle to handle my own laundry? Why do I have to know about the love triangle developing between the students from Cleveland and the Texan? I’ve got my own problems to deal with.

So, fair warning, you can submit your application but we aren’t going to be processing any for a while. I need to figure some things out first.

The right thing at the right time

Wu Wei (無爲) isn’t “doing nothing” it’s “doing nothing unnecessary” or “doing exactly what needs to be done exactly when it needs to be done”.

Taijiquan can seem magical due to the proficient player’s ability to perceive exactly what method is appropriate in a given context and apply it at exactly the right time, producing a much greater effect than the apparent cause that stimulated it. That ability is largely due to embracing and cultivating Wu Wei (無爲).

As a general concept it seems easy enough, but when we enter the realm of martial arts and push hands and managing conflict in our lives and we start involving ego and desire things get tricky.

I usually get bored waiting for them to make a mistake and I try to make something happen, and then I get pushed out.

Like Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan till the barista gets their order wrong.”

Okay, he might have said “till they get punched in the face” but what is more likely to happen in your daily life?

We might not want to take the action that needs to be taken because of how we feel it makes us look. We might be overcome with frustration or other emotion. We might think that it’s too difficult and try to find easier alternatives. We might be too tired to do it when it’s the right time. We might prefer a different solution and so lead with that no matter how inappropriate it is for the context.

I know, it sounds stupid, but that’s what people do, and it’s me, I’m people.

The whole key to Tai Chi, and Taoist sagehood, is doing only what is necessary, exactly when it is necessary.

Easy peasy.

So how do we do that?

Everything is a nail to a hammer.

In order to properly respond to WHAT IS, we have to stop being distracted by and insisting upon WHAT IS NOT.

That’s easy, right, reality is obvious. Things happen, we observe them, right?

100% wrong. Reality is essentially a shared hallucination. We get information from our senses then our brains sort through it and show us what looks important in the moment and tells us what it means.

So reality isn’t WHAT IS, “reality” as far as we know it, is the meaning we construct from experience.

There’s a story on the internet about a dog that found a pie in a bush on a walk, so every walk afterwards, the dog insists on checking the magic pie bush.

Or consider the “turkey scientist” from “Three Body Problem”. Through careful observation, the turkey scientist notices that food comes at 11AM every day, and the pattern repeats enough that the turkey scientist comes to rely on it as a fundamental truth of the universe. It holds true until the day of the Thanksgiving harvest.

Humans are fantastically complex creatures, and as such, we are easy to confuse. We spend our whole lives extrapolating and imagining in order to get one step ahead of the competition. Sometimes it pays off in innovation and creativity, but in the hard, cold reality of conflict we don’t have the luxury of working with the imaginary or theoretical. Basing action on anything but fact is a blind strike, relying on luck.

Bagua is unique among martial arts for it’s emphasis on circular stepping and evasive footwork. People said that when they tried to hit a master, they would disappear and reappear behind them as if through magic.

Of course the human being involved would just move in a way the other wasn’t accustomed to. In the heightened focus context of a fight, their field of view narrows. They toss out anything that isn’t relevant to their brain’s category of items marked “conflict”. They’ll expect the enemy to move a certain way, expect the attacks to come from a certain angle and direction. When the bagua master zigs instead of zagging, they lose track, and it seems like magic.

You can see this in professional fights with combo-heavy fighters. They spend so much time working combos that the synapses are irretrievably wired to fire together. When they start a combo, their body has to finish the combo. It’s like somebody knocking on a table “shave and a haircut”, if you’re a Gen X American you have no choice but to finish with “two bits”. It’s non-negotiable.

Maybe consider Ronda Rousey’s career, if you’re familiar with the UFC.

Maybe there’s some stupid thing you say in every single argument.

Outside of fighting, maybe you have some apprehension about a task or interaction coming up so you avoid it. It looms in your mind, the thing isn’t being dealt with, more problems are accruing. It becomes so much more than it is. Once you face it and deal with it, chances are it’s going to be a lot more manageable than you thought.

Or maybe somebody you care about did something that has you questioning their loyalty or honesty or motivations. You can chew on it and stew in it and get mad and make up a whole grand legend of betrayal, or you can talk to them. Connect, ask the scary questions. The questions are just as afraid of you as you are of them, because like Stone Temple Pilots said, the conversations kill them.

So Wu Wei is impeded by patterns, illusions, and expectations. This can keep us doing non-productive things, basing our actions in incomplete information, taking incorrect actions, or failing to take necessary action. Or worse, whatever that is.

You ever think there was one more or less step on the staircase? Step off a curb you didn’t know what there? Pick up something heavy that you thought was light? Pick up something light that you thought was heavy?

Stop Lying to Yourself

If only it were as easy as a cookbook or growing a bicep.

In “Stranger in a Strange Land” Robert Heinlein wrote about a job he envisioned called a “Fair Witness”.

A Fair Witness is trained to observe and report exactly what is seen and heard, and this is a step in the right direction. If you were to ask a Fair Witness what color a house was and they could see a yellow house, they would say “The side I can see is yellow”. Ask them about the other side and they would offer no opinion.

Show them the other side and they would agree that it is yellow, if in fact it were, but they would not be able to tell you that the first side was still yellow. It could have changed colors as they changed location. They could only say “It was yellow when I last saw it.”

This is so hard for us, particularly we wanna-be Kung Fu masters who want to be wise and seem to know everything without effort.

“You see the acorn in my hand? It is a tree.”

WRONG.

We are directed to know the great from the small, but without discernment it becomes prejudice and bias. In a conversation, we can wind up looking foolish. In a fight, we can wind up getting hurt. In life, we can make mistakes about our actions and relationships and our judgments of other people. We might decide we don’t like the way they look, or something about who we think they are that conflicts with our values. Maybe it’s accurate, usually it’s not.

We need to see the tree in the acorn, and the acorn in the tree, but we have to recognize that the acorn is not the tree. The acorn needs time and proper conditions to become the tree. If we don’t want a tree, we can prevent it from becoming one.

How to Wu Wei (無爲)

Wu Wei in the moment is about surrendering our expectations and prejudices and taking reality for what it is, or as best as we can get to understanding that. In the heat of conflict we don’t attack unless we are certain we have our target locked. Our defense is always working to receive and measure the opponent’s energy before responding.

It’s about understanding that our perception is colored by limited knowledge and an instinct to imagine, self-image, self-preservation, preservation of needs, and a wildly complex and convoluted psychology. It’s about remembering how adverse we are to uncertainty.

It’s about understanding that our perceptions can be anchored to a specific perspective that can obfuscate the truth. NLP hypnotists use this phenomenon to great effect.

We have to learn to not take our perceptions and our conclusions so seriously, but also to place greater trust in what clarity reveals and to be comfortable with not knowing until we do know.

Wu Wei is a means and a goal. It is the state described by the adage “cloudy water, left to settle, becomes clear.” It is the mindset described by the practitioner of ritual magic as following their practice for the sake of the practice itself, unsullied by lust for result.

It is quieting oneself, physically, mentally, emotionally. Focusing only on achieving a state of relaxed balance and being clear in the disposition of our heart’s intention. When we are pressed into conflict, we just need to focus on re-establishing that balance, and right action will manifest without effort. Or so the theory goes… try it for yourself and report back with results.

It is having the courage to confront what we are fearing, facing danger head on. It is testing our assumptions and conclusions before basing actions on them. It’s about not guessing when you can find out by asking. It’s considering other perspectives.

It’s about throwing out everything that isn’t absolutely true, so that we can rely absolutely on the truth of what’s left.

At least until that’s revealed to be illusory, too.