Wuwei is the Taoist concept of actionless doing or bringing about results without effort. Wuwei literally means “doing nothing” in Chinese. It sounds simple but it’s actually presented as one of the highest virtues in Taoism. To most of us this seems either like laziness or some sort of spiritual kung fu. On the surface non action seems to go against all that we have been taught about striving toward our goals. We’ve been conditioned to try and if at first we don’t succeed to try try again. Wuwei asks us to consider if all this hard “trying” on our part is actually contributing to the problem. It is not thoughtless inaction or laziness, Wuwei is in fact enlightened inaction. It is a decision to refrain from doing that which ultimately works against us.
For example:
In striving for “the good life’ many march out and buy a big comfortable house, lease a fancy car, and fill the house with furniture paid for on credit. They then become so indebted in pursuit of “the good life” that it actually makes them miserable for years to come. How much of their physical labor will be spent paying interest on borrowed money? How much of this precious time has gone into paying for fancy cars, that once paid for have already begun to rust? Did we buy the car so that we could get to work, so that we could make money we needed to pay for the car………? Are we actually getting anywhere with all our activity or are we just going in circles and spinning our wheels? I think that while in the pursuit of a good and contented life we have sometimes lost sight of what that actually means. Are all our efforts really adding value to our lives or just contributing to the stress and discomfort? I suspect most of us have been in too big of a hurry to stop and think about it.
Once we determined what’s really important in life, we should try to conserve our energy and reach the goal in as few steps as possible. All unnecessary complexity and extravagance should be eliminated. These things not only waste energy and postpone the attainment of our goals, they can ultimately lead to missing the mark completely. Wuwei does not mean ceasing all action, it means ceasing all unnecessary action. Instead of asking ourselves what we can do, (which leads to a widening of complexity and confusion), we instead ask ourselves what we can not do, (which leads to a narrowing down and focussing of our efforts). In saying yes to everything and everyone we become diluted and lose ourselves. But by clearly defining all that we are saying no too, we simultaneously define the clear and narrow path that we are saying yes too, and thus move with much less effort toward our goal.