According to Mencius, we are, at some level, already wu-wei. We just need to realize it and thereby become capable of nourishing the wu-wei tendencies within us.

The neuroscientist Arne Dietrich has done interesting work on what he calls “transient hypofrontality,” the downregulation of the cognitive control regions in the prefrontal cortex that occurs during intense physical exercise. Vigorous physical activity puts enormous stress on the human body, and the body responds by temporarily shutting down parts

To attain Laozian wu-wei, you need to undo rather than do, gradually unwinding your mind and body, shedding book learning and artificial desires. The goal is to relax into a state of perfect nondoing (wu-wei) and unselfconsciousness,

The psychologist Daniel Wegner has spent a good deal of his career exploring what he terms the “ironic effects” of conscious, intentional effort. In words that sound like they could have come straight from the Laozi he observes, “Many of our favorite goals, when pursued consciously, can be undermined by distractions and stressors to yield not just

The very act of trying to be good fatally contaminates the goal. As he says, “The worst kind of Virtue never stops striving for Virtue, and so never achieves Virtue.”

“Knowing the contentment of contentment” requires resisting the siren call of consumer culture and instead holding fast to primitive and simple pleasures.

In Laozi’s view, two of the main forces leading us away from wu-wei are the negative effect that thinking and verbalizing have on our ability to simply experience life, combined with the tendency of our desires to grow incessantly, becoming temporarily sated but then aroused again by some more desirable mirage in the distance.

Confucius saw humans as fundamentally crude by nature and in need of cultivation. Laozi believed that we’re fine as we are—or at least as we were, before society messed us up. For Laozi, human nature is fundamentally good, and our innate dispositions are the ones we need to follow. Education and training are therefore entirely counterproductive,

There is considerable evidence that small gestures, tone of voice, and facial expression can change the mood of your social surroundings, with effects that then radiate out in larger circles.