Sublime

Wei Wu Wei can be translated as ‘doing, non-doing’ or rather ‘doing until we reach the stage of non-doing’.

There’s a phrase in Chinese, “wu wei,” that describes how I felt. In English, its translation is “non-doing,” but not in the sense of doing nothing. Non-doing is not about escaping anything or being lazy but instead refers to a deep level of connectedness with the world. The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote about this more than 2,500 years ago in

“The ideal of ‘effortless action’, or wu-wei, refers to the dynamic, unselfconscious state of mind of a person who is optimally active and effective. People in wu-wei feel as if they are doing nothing, while at the same time they might be creating a brilliant work of art, smoothly negotiating a complex social situation, or even bringing the entire

Wu-wei is thus the life-style of one who follows the Tao, and must be understood primarily as a form of intelligence—that is, of knowing the principles, structures, and trends of human and natural affairs so well that one uses the least amount of energy in dealing with them. But this intelligence is, as we have seen, not simply intellectual; it is

WU CH’ENG says, “The sage seeks without seeking and studies without studying. For the truth of all things lies not in acting but in doing what is natural. By not acting, the sage shares in the naturalness of all things.

Understanding and following the mystery of wu-wei does not mean that you lose your intellectual faculties. Instead, your intellectual life and the apparent use of force begin to be refined into a changeful openness toward life. Actually our intellectual life begins to thrive when we relinquish the habit of force.

wu-wei, or effortless action.

wu-wei is understanding that you don’t have to push.