Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Wu Wei

...is an important concept of Taoism (Daoism), that involves knowing when to act and when not to act. Another perspective to this is that "Wu Wei" means natural action - as planets revolve around the sun, they "do" this revolving, but without "doing" it; or as trees grow, they "do", but without "doing". Thus knowing when (and how) to act is not knowledge in the sense that one would think "now" is the right time to do "this", but rather just doing it, doing the natural thing.
From Wikipedia.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Taoism is some good stuff. Definitely great Saturday Night Live "Deep Thoughts" material (http://www.ozzu.com/general-discussion/deep-thoughts-jack-handy-saturday-night-live-t144.html). But that sounds like I'm trivializing Taoism.
Well, I laugh at myself, so I figure I can laugh at everybody else.
I would argue that the planets do what they do because they were designed to do what they do. You might say it's all by chance. Semantics. We both, likely, agree that regardless of how things began, right NOW the planets follow the rules of science, mainly physics I guess.
So there's your design. By chance or by Original Design, it's a level of design.
So, for you, I'd say: Design Yourself.
That's the difference between you and a planet or a tree or a raindrop.
You have free will and power to execute that will over all laws (in varying degrees per law and per point in the space-time continuum).
In fact, you have the power to act in such a way as to create new laws by which you govern your world and are governed by it.
Uh yeah ... that's some power baby.
Let me see a tree do that and I'll sign on the Taoist line without qualification.