Effortless Living: Wu-Wei and the Spontaneous State of Natural Harmony

When you finally realize, beyond intellectual speculation, that the whole universe is happening to you right now all at once, you will cease projecting yourself onto the world, because you will become receptive to the universe. This will align you with a real trust in life that confirms that you belong. Your li is a nonlinear pattern that organical

Lao-tzu, on the other hand, believed that we are naturally pure; it is the belief systems and social indoctrination of the world that give us a gross character and warp our pure nature. As a result, we need to get back to the raw, intrinsically human, elements of our being.

We are always interfering with each other’s natural sovereignty. Many people arrogantly and ignorantly do this daily and then proclaim that they know what freedom and love are. How can we listen and help each other if it is merely from our own cultural, social, or religious perspective? If we have a set of beliefs to sell another, then we are surel

DANIEL REID, AUTHOR OF THE TAO OF HEALTH, SEX, AND LONGEVITY AND THE TAO OF DETOX

Psychologically, the intellect is the masculine principle of the universe, or in Chinese yang (陽: Wade-Giles yang, Pinyin yang), and its habitual tendency is geared toward force and control. On the other end of the spectrum, the feminine principle of the universe, or in Chinese yin (陰: Wade-Giles yin, Pinyin yin), is the intuition and heart of our

The essential teaching of wu-wei can only be known if the individual is sincere in surrendering control and, as a result, giving his life over to something much bigger than himself.

This analytical, active part of our mind in the prefrontal cortex is physiologically expensive if it is not supported by the more primal regions of the brain that we associate with the unconscious mind. The function of the unconscious regions of the brain is known in cognitive science as “hot cognition” or “System 1.” Hot cognition is the function

everything in the universe is integral and symbiotic in nature, and that everything functions harmoniously according to the rhythm of the universe. So, he asks, why would humanity be the exception? The Way of the Tao and our experience of it comes from allowing all aspects of the universe to happen as they will without conscious interference.

Richard Nisbett articulates the essence of the paradoxical Middle Way of language and thought in his book The Geography of Thought: