The
concept of wu wei, non-action, permeates the Tao. Often thought of as quietism
or passivity, wu wei is really much closer to a concept of right action than of
no action at all. The focus is on waiting for the right action to make itself
known and then doing it without hesitation; as opposed to seeking to enforce
your own will, it centers on moving harmoniously with the flow of the universal
Tao.
The
Tao applies this principle to governmental leadership, but this “less is more”
philosophy has many implications for our spiritual lives, too. Specifically, wu
wei demands discipline because we must refrain from acting simply for the sake
of acting, a siren call when difficulties arise and we wish to avoid or plow
through them. Instead, wu wei calls us to a very active form of patience, a
watchful waiting similar in some ways to both the Buddhist concept of
mindfulness and the Christian concept of discernment: like mindfulness it is
predicated upon awareness of what surrounds us, and like discernment it
involves a sifting through ego-driven desires to a purer communication with the
universal. Yet its call to acting with surgical precision at precisely the
right moment, no more and no less, is uniquely its own. |