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wu-wei

To: alt.philosophy.taoism
From: taip0003@tc.umn.edu (Kaisa)
Subject: Re: wu-wei
Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 00:12:57 GMT

zhoubu@ix.netcom.com(Miller Jew) wrote:

>ref: Subject: Re: wu-wei

>gclind01@starbase.spd.louisville.edu (George C. Lindauer) wrote:
>Kaisa (taip0003@tc.umn.edu) wrote:

>>Is it harder to use the principle of wu-wei or not to? ...

>In a bit of a tome, I think it's harder to use Wu-Wei because our
>physical body/brain system is more evolved to our earth's physical body
>system. Because imho every *thing* has a spiritual Life innate in it,
>in trying to express itself through some*thing* its literally a
>'trying effort' when initially induced, like -- trying to levitate
>when the earth's trying to keep your physical body gravitationally
>down (( nonono... bad example, we already levitated this succesfully
>with astronauts :-)) Or-- kinda of like extolling a biblical expression
>(about) the 'war between heaven and hell', but that's another story...
>okayokay... a (ft) -- (and back down)... 

>I.e. Wu Wei-ing's harder because our physical-organic system obeys the
>ebb and flow of the earth's natural movements more efficiently than it
>does our spiritual domain's that are also inherent in our earth Life,
>but the former is more evolutionarily developed in it's physical
>stature than its spiritual counterpart. So this nascent tugging is
>sorta like that urge we feel we must aspire to, but to what avail?
>Since there's not yet a maturation of the physical/brain organics
>development (see below), the higher spiritual nature of our Life
>attempting to express itself through our earth Life (and our other
>earth kingdoms) through our earth organics components is more difficult
>-- yet Taoism can help guide us through this more exquisite approach. 

>Kaisa:
>>Does it get easier with practice?   

>Yes. 

>David: 
>>wu-wei is an absence of something... to use is a presence of
>>something. The two are kind of opposites...

>Overall agreed. In a roundabout way, there is an absence yet it is not
>absent, it is coordinated by an expanded presence on its former
>control.  

>In Chinese, Wu Wei literally means no action: Wu (no) Wei (action).
>Imho, it's basically an intuitive way of going about one's daily
>activities instead of following the rational, emotional, and physical
>activities --> not that these three are denied but superceedingly
>coordinated by our intuitive functioning. In a bit here, I believe
>more accurately --than calling Wu Wei an exclusive non-interference or
>no willful action expression--or worse? passive-- it is the
>coordinated control of our dynamic intuitive faculty that makes the
>'interference' or willful actions no longer our coordinates, rather
>our intuition takes coordinated control. Hence 'no-action'/ Wu Wei of
>the mental/emotional/physical counterparts; they are now controlled by
>our intuitive understanding and it's affective 'spontaneous' (or
>better --> synthetic) processing through these components. Overall Wu
>Wei denotes the stage where w/man's will upon these now-lesser
>controllers ceases to operate, while h/her Tao begins its natural and
>spontaneous flow through them, and manifests its innate freedom.

>Hence in the TTC and a commentary re Wu Wei and our internal earth
>kingdoms:

>"In love the people and ruling the state,
>Can you practice Wu Wei?" 

>"In loving the people (our internal humanity) and ruling the state
>((ruling) our organic mental/emotional/physical states))
>Can you practice Wu Wei (our intuitive acuity on them)?"

>Regards,
>--Zhou

>(and the) ft: 

>"The genius and the mortal instruments
>Are in council; and the state of man,
>Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
>The nature of an insurrection." 

>--Shakespeare ("Hamlet") 
 
Ah! Thank you! I realized after I posted this that I didn't quite
phrase it right, but this is what I was looking for. (The other
responses were good too, just not answering the question I meant but
didn't quite say right :). I try to practice wu-wei, but sometimes it
seems that it's easier to approach things the way I always approach
them because change is hard, and I'm not used to wu-wei. I suppose
it's not a question of adding wu-wei but of taking off all the other
learned behaviors. Taking out the dams to the flow of Tao :) ?

Have a very good day or night or whatever!
Kaisa


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