Daodejing, Verse 37

Daodejing - Other Voices

Doing Without Doing
Tao abides in non-action,
Yet nothing is left undone.
If kings and lords observed this,
The ten thousand things would develop naturally.
If they still desired to act,
They would return to the simplest form of substance.
Without form there is no desire.
Without desire there is tranquility.
And in this way, all things would be at peace.
- Verse 37, Tao Te Ching (translated by Gie-Fu Feng and Jane English)

Saturday afternoon, after running a multitude of errands gleefully on a warm, sunny April morning, I grabbed my favorite book and decided to take a moment to read whilst appreciating God's gift of nature on display in our backyard. My favorite book, The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff, awaited me on the back porch as I opened to one of my favorite chapters entitled "The Pooh Way". No matter how many times I go back to this book, which explains many Taoist principles through the tales of everyone's favorite simple bear, it seems to resonate ever-powerfully with me. And sitting on back porch, I once again became enraptured in the Taoist principle of Wu Wei. That is, "without action".

To clarify, Wu Wei more specifically means "without interference or meddlesome action". After reading the chapter and staring into the trees for several minutes, I realized that for some time, I've been afflicted with a case of being Far Too Concerned with things. We can all have a tendency to try to do too much to make square pegs fit in round holes, or even to make round pegs fit better in their own holes instead of just letting them fit or not fit. My own actions are sometimes unnecessary and possibly even detrimental! Have you ever had an experience where you try too hard to make something work a certain way? Or maybe you find yourself thinking too much about making something work just right instead of just realizing that Things Are as They Are and going with the flow of it? Hoff puts it this way:

"Wu Wei puts the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No struggle, no stress. Egotistical Desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole. Cleverness develops craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don't belong. Wu Wei doesn't think about it. It just does it. And when it does, it doesn't appear to do much of anything. But things get done."

The idea behind Wu Wei is to Do Without Doing. Or do without Over-doing. Often times it is best to simply allow nature to take its course instead of trying to impose selfish will and desire on a situation or a person. So often... we just know better. Well, we assume we do. We think we know how things should work, will work, or must work. And they very well may... but they may not. But the point is that that is okay. Just let it be. Let it happen and go with the flow.

This is not an invitation to laziness and indecision. As the verse states, "Tao abides in non-action, Yet nothing is left undone." The key is to take things as they come and accept situations as they are. Then you can work with circumstances, rather than against them. Trying to force things to be the way you think they should be doesn't often work, and can do far more harm than good. We Desire to make things happen quicker, easier, and precisely. But when you let a situation unfold naturally, it can turn out in a way you couldn't have created or predicted. But it may just be better than you could have possibly planned.

But wait! That's not all! This principle has an added benefit: less stressors! It may take some getting used to, but as you accept that things and people will take their course and you Just Do and let things Just Be, more and more you'll find things are much easier to deal with as they come up. There's a saying that goes, "Let go and Let God". If you do believe in God or any overseeing force holding the universe together, there's a confidence in knowing that if you just do things as they come rather than over-thinking and trying too hard, things just work. The confidence of no longer having to be concerned with making a situation exactly what you think it needs to be or making people Behave as you believe they should.

Take time to breathe and allow life to happen for awhile...
~ from Just Bright, author Matt Bright, original post date: 4/21/09 ~

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