In a society obsessed with success and constantly achieving new goals, we are doomed to constantly run. We do not have the right to relax and stop even for a minute - we will immediately be called lazy and diagnosed with “procrastination”.
But in Taoism, unlike modern Western culture, inaction is one type of activity. If it is appropriate and aimed at creation, then it is much more useful than hasty actions and violence over events.
Wu wei is one of the basic principles of Taoist philosophy, one of its central concepts. It does not mean that a person should lie down and do nothing. It is about not interfering with the natural order of events, entering into the flow of life and moving in harmony with it. Without changing its flow, without trying to widen or narrow its banks, without becoming a dam, but by being part of this flow, we can be stronger than those who spend so much effort fighting it.
Simply put, by understanding the laws of life and nature, we are able to move at greater speed while exerting less force. Outwardly, this sometimes looks like inactivity, and some may call this process laziness. But that's not true.
What does a cheetah do when it waits in the thickets for its prey to approach? How inactive is a frog lying in wait for a fly? What does a farmer do as he waits for the seeds he has planted to sprout? All of them are involved in activity - waiting, preparing, studying surrounding circumstances. Will a cheetah be able to catch a gazelle if it rushes through the desert without a break? Will the bread sprout if the farmer digs up and buries the grains back to see if they have sprung? Their temporary inactivity is much more necessary and useful when it is timely and creative.
In Taoism it is believed that a person who has cognized the Tao is not subject to anything and is not dependent on anything. He can see and understand the whole depth of things, he is free, nothing gnaws at him, since he is involved in the flow of life, the universe helps him.
Why is it so difficult for us to accept this philosophy and teach how to do nothing correctly? Because we don’t know how to stop in time, we don’t know when it’s time to tell ourselves “enough.” Wu wei is to remain silent when one should not speak; leave a person alone when he is not in the mood for communication; wait for the time and feel when your partner is ready to meet you halfway; wait for a favorable time to make transactions.
We are too zealous, too diligent, too restless, too pushy, too pushy, too insensitive. We move forward, trying to break through barriers with our heads, without feeling the moments when the barriers are ready to part on their own.
A developing personality is characterized by the qualities of plasticity, fluidity, and adaptability. Wu Wei tells us that we must learn to be flexible, accept change, change with the world and not try to stop the irreversible. If we tried to resist the coming of night or fight the fall of autumn leaves, we would spend our whole lives in a pointless struggle. Instead, we constantly adapt to the world– we turn on the light when it gets dark, wrap ourselves in warm clothes when it gets cold.
But these examples are too obvious. There are many situations in our daily lives when it is important to understand: do we need to fight or do we need to retreat? We don’t always know how to feel the difference between the first and the second, so we often give up where we should act, and create a lot of noise where silence is needed.
Patience is not available to everyone; not everyone can learn to enter a state of peace when circumstances require it. We know only one side of life - physical action, identified with development and success.
But if you have ever tried to feel and wait for the right moment, then you understand that waiting and contemplation is no less serious work than visible to the eye external labor.
There are many static exercises in karate, yoga and other eastern practices. When you need to stand for some time on half-bent legs, stretching out or taking an uncomfortable position. These moments are tense certain groups muscles, and you can feel that such a static load is no easier than active exercises. On the contrary, it is heavier. Even a person involved in active sports will find it difficult to perform these exercises out of habit.
Wu wei is not only about inaction, this principle includes many different positions. Thus, in Tao, the implementation of non-action is manifested in not being proud of accomplishments and not possessing what has been created, not striving too passionately to achieve the goal. You need to moderate your ardor, do the work without thinking about the end result, go towards something without giving it too much importance.
Andy Urohol owns phrases that perfectly reveal the meaning of wu wei philosophy:
You can achieve more power by keeping quiet.
When you stop wanting something, you immediately get it.
Of course, inaction should not become your only activity if you are going to continue to live in this society on an equal basis with other people. Complete renunciation of desires and aspirations leads to the path of yogis and monks.
Wu Wei works great in combination with active actions. It can be deciphered using the Yin-Yang sign, where masculine energy is responsible for movement, and the female one is for peace. With the right dosage, these two forces bring harmony in the soul and in life.
In conclusion, I will say that wu wei is a multifaceted concept, it has many nuances. A huge number of scientific works and books are devoted to it; people spend years understanding the power of wu wei. To penetrate its depth, you need to work hard, but it is extremely interesting. Well, I think you already understand the main idea: wu wei is the ability to act without action and create without making unnecessary efforts.
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The Italians, those hedonists, have a wonderful concept, La Dolce Far Niente, which translates as “sweet idleness.” It is believed that popular expression first introduced into use by the Roman author Pliny the Younger, who lived in Italy in 61-113 AD. This concept refers to that same carefree idleness when you have the opportunity to return home after a couple of hours of work, take a nap, then go out to your favorite cafe to drink a glass of wine or a cup of delicious coffee.
The idea of stopping and doing nothing is not new - in ancient China they talked about the concept wu-wei, the art of passive contemplation. This is the case when a person has no reason to move, no matter forward or backward. The teaching of wu wei is closely related to the ability to live in the moment, here and now. So, what are the basic principles of doing nothing, or wu wei, that you need to rely on in order to idle intelligently and feelingly?
Don't force things
The principles of wu wei, doing nothing, were first outlined in the ancient Chinese work Tao Te Ching, written around the sixth century BC. According to some sources, the author of this large-scale work is the legendary Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher.
The principle of passively waiting for action, not forcing events, is considered key in the teaching of doing nothing. The frantic pace of life forces you to anticipate events, think ahead, strain your brain in search of solutions to problems that do not yet exist. We are forced to run forward, but we continue to remain in place, just like the heroes of Lewis Carroll.
Everything that needs to happen will happen without your participation. When the moment comes to act, you will feel that energy has accumulated in you, you are full of strength and determination to move forward. The apple itself will fall into your hands.
Contemplate the world
When was the last time you watched the stars or the movement of clouds on a windy day? A couple of decades ago, in my youth? The Chinese philosopher Zhuang Tzu, who is also credited with the authorship of the wu wei teachings, spoke about the need for contemplative passivity back in the fourth century BC. By the way, it is from this principle that the legs grow famous work“The Art of War”: from emptiness comes silence, from silence comes action, from action comes knowledge.
In Japan, for example, there is generally a popular practice of “immersion in the forest.” Japanese scientists have concluded that a 40-minute walk through the forest, among the trees, has a positive effect on human health. The level of stress hormone decreases, blood pressure normalizes, strengthens the immune system and in general there is a feeling close to happiness.
Here's an exceptional option for healthy doing nothing - leave what you're doing and go for a walk in the nearest park. Watch the trees, listen to the wind, notice the little things. By the end of the walk you will definitely feel like a different person.
Enjoy little
For many of us, perfectionism is instilled in us from childhood. Perhaps you too have been told that you need to make plans, dream big, strive for more. The eternal arms race “higher, stronger, more” is incredibly exhausting. By the time the goal is achieved, there is absolutely no strength left to enjoy it. If this is familiar to you, use the wu-wei principle and don’t aim for more. Enjoy little things, but do it sincerely.
Scientists from scientific center Berkeley University came to the conclusion that happiness is not about “not enough.”
When there is a lot of good, the brain stops perceiving it as pleasure and stops producing the corresponding hormones that give us this magical state. On the contrary, it is even better to learn to rejoice and enjoy little things.
Of course, this does not mean that you need to step on the throat of your desires, walk around in rags and live in ashes. Just enjoy everything good that happens to you, even if it's a ray of sunshine in the middle of a gloomy day, and not a luxurious Bentley in the office parking lot.
Listen to the silence
The tragedy of our time is a noise that never stops for a minute. It penetrates everywhere and does not stop even at night. The noise of the city causes our bodies to produce stress hormones. The constant release of adrenaline and cortisol is very harmful to health and can cause heart disease, says Mathias Basner, professor of psychiatry and sleep specialist at Medical school Perelman at the University of Pennsylvania.
We do not encourage you to leave the city and settle in the taiga to enjoy the silence. But you can turn off the sound of your phone more often or take out headphones from your ears, do not turn on TV or loud music as background accompaniment in the evenings, and spend some time (from 20 minutes to an hour) in silence for the sake of preserving your health. In silence the brain rests, don’t forget.
: wúwèi) - contemplative passivity. This word is often translated as “inaction”; another translation is “lack of motivation.” The most important quality of Inaction is the absence of reasons for action. There is no thinking, no calculation, no desire. Between the inner nature of a person and his action in the world there are no intermediate steps at all. The action occurs suddenly and, as a rule, reaches the goal in the shortest way, since it is based on perception. Such a world-being is characteristic only of enlightened people, whose mind is soft, disciplined and completely subordinate to the deep nature of man.
What is the meaning of Wu Wei practice? First of all, we must look for the key to its understanding in the related category De. If Te is what gives shape to things and is the metaphysical force that creates everything from Tao, then Wu Wei is the optimal way to interact with Te. This is a way to realize Te in everyday life. This method consists of removing excess vital and mental energy qi from the realities of everyday life and redirecting this energy to the spiritual, esoteric growth of the individual. But this spiritual growth is organically connected with the life of the body and the way of being. Therefore, all the meaningless actions prescribed by Wu Wei, such as sweeping the courtyard with a twig, are the strictest discipline of mind and body, often practiced in the monasteries of China from ancient times to the present day. In the Buddhist tradition, Wu Wei is also synonymous with taming the mind.
By performing meaningless actions as well as useful ones, the adept comprehends the essence of non-duality - the absence in the objective world of the division of things into “good and bad”, “useful and useless”. Understanding this leads to calm, peace, and then enlightenment.
The principle of Wu Wei had a significant influence on the doctrine of non-doing by L. N. Tolstoy.
Notes
Literature
- Titarenko M. L., Abaev N. V. Wei // Chinese philosophy. Encyclopedic Dictionary / ed. Titarenko M.L.. - M.: Mysl, 1994. - 573 p. - ISBN 5-244-00757-2
- Slingerland, Edward. Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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GBTIMES RUSSIA2017/05/31
A fragment of a picture or a fragment of existence? (Photo: Bronislaw Vinogrodsky)
Once upon a time, in the last 20th century, in order to touch the wisdom of the ancients, you had to spend more than one hour in the library reading philosophical works. Well, or, at a minimum, open a book with a collection of aphorisms written or spoken by sages who lived in different eras, in different countries and under different rulers.
The 21st century has significantly simplified the task of comprehending wisdom, and the ubiquitous Internet has offered all of us its digitized version in the form of numerous sites where you can find valuable statements by valuable people on almost any subject of any value.
A simple amateurish experiment confirms that Internet sages have a special love for the aphorisms of representatives of “Eastern philosophy,” and quotes “from Confucius” are probably second in popularity only to quotes “from Ranevskaya.”
It’s easy to check that for standard queries “Ranevskaya aphorisms” and “eastern wisdom” the most popular search system The Russian Internet gives almost the same number of answers - more than 9 thousand sites.
The query “Confucius aphorisms” returns more than 5 thousand links, and “Confucius quotes” – 4 thousand.
But can we be completely sure that the “quotes and pictures for posting on the social networks VK, Facebook and Twitter” found by the automated supplier of Eastern wisdom (the style of the site’s authors has been preserved) are really related to the great Teacher?
Who can guarantee that all these “aphorisms of Confucius”, such as “Choose a job you like, and you will never have to work a single day in your life,” are not a poorly stylized “Oriental” rehash of banal truths?
Nobody can, because, you see, among Internet users there are not so many people who are familiar in detail with the basics of Eastern philosophical teachings, and further less people who have read the works of the same Confucius, at least in the most famous and considered classical translations.
A frequent interlocutor of gbtimes, the famous sinologist and translator of classical works of Chinese philosophy Bronislav Vinogrodsky is just one of these specialists.
A few years ago, in 2009, Bronislaw published his translation of Confucius’ Discourses, and he did this work, as always, in a unique and unique manner.
In his translation, the ancient text appears not as a historical monument covered in glory, but as a guide to life and management art, when the wisdom of the Master becomes a guide in modern space and time.
The book of translations of Confucius by Vinogrodsky was republished in 2013. And then something happened that the great philosopher actually warned about: “The sage said: Learning to apply what you have learned over time is not a joy?”
On Bronislaw Winogrodsky's page social network This is not the first year and aphorisms, reflections on life, observations on the nature of things appear with enviable regularity - you can choose any name for these short texts - signed “Wei Dehan” (or “Wei De-Han”).
It turned out to be not difficult to find out who this Wei Dehan was, and in fact, Bronislav makes no secret of it: “The Chinese name was given to me in the Year of the Dragon in 1988 in Harbin, by a man who turned 60 that year, that is he lived his first full cycle. The character Wei is consonant with the first syllable of my surname, and the two characters De - Han mean “Strength from China,” where De is the strength of spirit, and Han is the self-name of the Chinese nation.”
As for the idea of writing short texts (Bronislaw himself, in conversations with friends and like-minded people, jokingly calls them “weidehanki”), they became precisely the ability to apply what was learned, which Confucius actually wrote about.
“I translated Chinese sages for so long and a lot that I decided to try to write in a similar style of aphorisms myself and see how people would react to it. Will they accept these texts as truly Chinese wisdom or will they doubt its authenticity?” – explains the author who decided to play a prank on his readers.
It must be said that the experiment was a success, and many people, even those who knew well and were in close contact with the “great hoaxer,” at first really perceived them as translations of a certain hitherto little-studied philosopher.
However, according to the logic of life from Vinogrodsky, each of us can become a philosopher.
Wei Dehan's philosophical aphorisms are not the result of some mystical insight or inspiration. As Bronislav says, for him such concepts simply do not exist. There is ordinary, everyday and painstaking work - work with meaning, which is the essence of the existence of any person.
We should not philosophize “on the topic,” but simply “get up and work.” We must observe how the world is changing and how, most importantly, we ourselves are changing.
Working with meanings is observing the changes that occur in yourself; "This incredible adventure“, which is rarely given to anyone, but it is self-observation that alone changes the quality of time and circumstances, for there are no circumstances except the circumstances of time.”
This year, Bronislav Vinogrodsky, who is without a doubt one of the brightest representatives of the Russian sinology community, reached the most important milestone for every person, 60 years old.
It is known that in Chinese philosophy of life, the age of 60 is for a person the same “year of the foundation of fate” as the year of his birth. This is the year when a person’s destiny is laid, when “you can see the shoots of the future in yourself and then carefully nurture them.”
In this context, Wei Dehan’s aphorisms as observations on life, written at the beginning of a new 60-year cycle, can become for each of us, if not “ancient Chinese,” but quite an effective tool of self-knowledge and a guide in the process of comprehending modern space and time.
(And, by the way, unlike “Ranevskaya’s quotes”, here we can be completely confident in the authenticity of the authorship.)
Then, in the unhurried rhythm of “as Wei Dehan said,” we will suddenly hear echoes of rallies of dissent, see the silhouettes of virtual reality into which television and social media, we will once again understand the importance of “working on ourselves” and even find an explanation for our own lamentations about such cold global warming this spring.
In general, read Wei Dehan and unravel the knots of your destiny. Fun activity!
On slowness in relations with the outside world:
“The shore flashes closer and further away.
In fact, it flashes only in glance. Stop in your mind and all visions will disappear.”
“Learn to experience calm joy by contemplating any images without associating them with the usual ways of experiencing feelings.”
“It’s not so easy to stop rushing the movement of images in the stream of movements of the mind, but that’s exactly what needs to be done.”
“There is nothing funnier than demanding special treatment from the world.
We’re all very funny funny people.”
“Everything that you managed to come up with about yourself begins to irreversibly exist in your made-up world.
What to do?
Either get out of the imagined world into the real one, or invent a new one.
One of many possibilities."
“Let your goals choose you.
Do not strive to achieve what was imposed on you by the environment of everyday circumstances.”
“Untangling and untying knots is a very valuable skill if used correctly.
Understand where the main nodes are.”
“To catch the right wave in the flow of events, you need to be able to wait correctly, which implies complete liberation from intentional waiting.”
“The variety of objects is infinite, but everything is in unity if you look from the heart.
And where there is unity, there is peace.
Where there is peace, there is clarity.
This is happiness."
On the importance of self-knowledge and the search for meaning:
“There is no way out, only in.”
“Comprehending in itself is incomprehensible. But only comprehension is worth comprehending.”
“Standing over the abyss is always on time.”
“Don’t be different, but don’t be yourself either. Don't be at all."
“Only time makes no mistakes.
All errors are in the human mind when it is perceived as something separate from time.”
“When I manage to make everyone forget about me, then I will look at the world again and see what I need.”
“Empty words. All words are empty.
Only the meaning put into them makes the word complete.”
“Meanings are always ambiguous.
This is the nature of meaning."
“Faith without knowledge is vanity and hypocrisy.
Knowledge without faith is empty vanity and the chatter of meaningless words.”
About relationships in society:
“We will all adapt to each other in different, not always the best, ways.
But there’s nowhere to go.”
“Human kindness is greatly exaggerated.
Just like human evil.
Much stronger than both are stupidity and impatience.”
“Whoever you meet along the way is not necessarily the one you need.
A statement that is opposite in meaning is also true.”
“Once you get used to some stupidity, then you live with it.
And you try to impose it on others.
We are very diligent.
People".
“All those who disagree will forever remain in disagreement.
Sad fate."
“I alone cannot cope with the riddle of eternity.
Either everyone is gone, or you’ll have to get rid of yourself too.”
About infinity in space and time:
“There are few sensations, but there are an infinite number of shades and transitions.
No need to get too carried away.
Everything is the same".
“Whatever you see, it will immediately turn inside into a familiar image, and will give rise to a familiar experience, following which you will come to the familiar way of manifesting your nature.
And nothing else."
“Any signs can be secret.
It depends on what you want to read.”
“Even if I achieve what I want, I will simultaneously achieve everything else, where the undesirable will always be more than the desired.
The world is huge."
“Only smoke knows the secret channels of the currents in the air.
By observing the smoke, you can also see where time flows in space.”
About the cold May of 2017:
“The weather that you don’t like now always coincides with the true state of affairs in your soul.
You just need to be able to take a closer look and admit it to yourself honestly.”
(This is just a small part of observations on life from Wei Dehan, published in the period 6.05 - 16.05).
inaction) - in the Chinese religious and philosophical tradition, the denial of purposeful activity that goes against the natural world order. Following the principle of non-action, a wise person organizes the reality around him and harmonizes the world. The category “wu wei” occupies an important place in the philosophy of Taoism.
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
WU-WEI
whale. - non-action, action through non-doing) is a principle of Taoist philosophy, one of the central concepts of the Tao Te Ching. W.-w., along with Zizhan (naturalness), formalizes and concretizes the method of movement of Tao and De. “Tao constantly carries out non-action, thereby there is nothing that it does not do” (37 Zhang of the Tao Te Ching). Drawing the source of internal strength in “silence” and “non-existence”, the Wu, according to Lao Tzu, is more primary than any active impulse, any offensive activity. One must reach the point of non-action by continuously reducing one's desires, and since non-action is present everywhere, a person's abilities become limitless. In early Taoism, U.-v. opposes the rituals of the Confucians and the laws of the Mohists. Being the action of a special, internal style, U.-v. calls to follow the natural laws of nature and not to force the nature of man himself. As internal, Uv. opposes the external, like the natural - the artificial, like the true - the false. In Zhuang Tzu, non-action takes on the characteristics of ignorance and non-service. Be socially engaged, serve public service- means to act contrary to inner nature, to commit violence. Not knowing is that truth is outside of learning, and knowledge interferes with life and opposes it. Confucian interpretation of W.-v. emphasized non-action as sacrificial service for the good of society. The inner intuition of the self, put forward by Zhuang Tzu as a criterion of truth, was replaced by a social law requiring the oblivion of personal action. However, U.-v. remained a purely Taoist cognitive principle and practical criterion for any type of activity. As such, U.-v. influenced the creation and development breathing exercises and the internal martial Taoist style of Tai Chi Chuan. Having turned from the time of Lao Tzu into a psychological attitude, into a cultural mood, Wu.-v. characterizes not only the way of Chinese thinking, but also extends to the entire mentality of Eastern-type cultures. As a concept, with the penetration of Buddhism into China, Wu. completely dissolves in the theory of the Chan school. It is characteristic that Chan rituals, having adopted the Taoist principle of non-action and transformed it on the theoretical basis of Buddhism, were distinguished by strict asceticism, increased rigor in implementation and clear regulation.
Non-action means uselessness and impossibility of doing anything with the idea of "I". The “I” should be left to itself so that external and internal attachments begin to be perceived as obstacles to personal growth. Understanding the personality as a “non-self” presupposes a vision of nirvana as absolute peace, devoid of any manifestations of life, while the “non-self” personality is forced to maintain the image of its own individuality and contribute to the salvation of other individuals. The contradiction between the accepted logical postulate about the non-existence of the “I” and the real existence of the individual subject finds its resolution in the will as the semantic core of non-action. The volitional concentration of "not-I" is devoid of individualism, " self-importance", all those epistemological and psychological characteristics that E. Fromm designated as "to have". The metatheoretical level of the attitude of the cultural world allows it to be applied as an explanatory principle to Eastern (China, Japan) art, various forms of beliefs, psychological phenomena. The explanation of the energy of any action, all creativity, understood as non-action, is related to the principle of U.-v. with the phenomenon of Christian faith. Within faith, action occurs in a free and independent manner, while remaining completely dependent on divine providence.
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
