Submitted by IAI_Admin t3_10v57xf in philosophy
I feel like a lot of people here are equating the concept of Wu Wei with the concept of "The Zone"
Wu Wei is different from the zone. It is effortless. It embodies inaction or effortless action.
The zone is more like a state of heightened awareness where your ability to process and react to information is increased. But it's an active state. The entire time you're in the zone, you're exerting effort.
Wu Wei is passive. Effortless. One example that helps describe Wu Wei is the end of Kung Fu Hustle. Many people would consider the final fight a state of Wu Wei for the main character. But it's really the moment he stops fighting.
A lot of martial arts movies will have this concept. Where someone who's completely mastered martial arts has chosen to stop fighting. Because that is Wu Wei.
I like to think of Wu Wei as the path of least action when it comes to what we expect the world to be. It's about how things fit perfectly in the current context, any action to be taken is easily derived from this context.
So in a way, a video game map can be made Wu Wei, which in turn may yield a flow state if the player is experienced.
Maybe perfect conditions can lower the threshold of skill/activation needed to achieve flow. Like a ceiling and a floor coming togheter.
What you're describing is antithetical to Wu Wei and Daoism. Wu Wei isn't about making things a certain way at all. It's about accepting that things are how they are without trying to change them to fit your perception or goals.
The act of getting into a flow state is not really aligned with traditional Daoism, which is all about letting go of trying to optimize or improve.
So it doesn't make sense that someone can make a place perfect, such that others can be there effortlessly?
I mean that if things already fit your perception perfectly then there is no need to change them. At that moment you can just chill.
To start labeling places as perfect doesn't seem like Daoism/Wu Wei but I'm no scholar. I thought it was about accepting everything that is and happens without any judgement?
Sure, but if circumstances are difficult then I wouldn't call it going with the flow to just play along. If your house is on fire, there is no effortless action. All choices are difficult and all action hard.
I think it's more in line with circumstances/context fitting perfectly with what you expect of the world. And your expectation is managed by your ability and experience.
I like to see it as the principle of least action from cognitive neuroscience. Where we try to update our model of the world to fit according to our senses. If your model is aligned with what we sense then we do not need to take any action. We are already in sync so to say.
I'm not a heavily invested scholar but my understanding of Dao and Wu Wei is that it does strive for perfection, it's just that perfection is harmony with nature and divine providence.
The descriptions of the ultimate government using Wu Wei is that the ruler at the very top should do nothing at all because nothing needs to be done - in the ideal government, the ministers diligently carry out duties, and their subordinates do the same, and the country prospers without need for a directive from the ruler.
"Effortless action" here doesn't mean doing nothing, it means that no additional effort need be expended because acting in harmony with the world and the Dao creates a divine experience (not even necessarily positive - there's a measure of Stoic-like acceptance of harm as also being part of what nature is).
I think (not 100% sure) there is a "perfect" world under the Dao, but it's one that's effectively without thought - all persons just, by their nature, act in accordance with the Dao and what will be will be.
Ah interesting!
Sounds like it's a bit 50/50 since it's usually your thoughts that creates judgement and expectations.
Grasping and letting go are both actions. Wu-wei is the pattern of nature. It's in the nature of raindrops to fall from the sky when it rains. The raindrop doesn't TRY to fall from the sky. It makes no choices. It follows the "Tao."
When we no longer view separation between self and environment, the delusions of control and self dissipate. Wu wei is how you live after. It's how you lived before too, but now that you get it, you don't spend your life pressing the elevator button so hard your fingers bleed. Pressing the button harder doesn't make it work better, but it hurts the presser.
Not correcting or arguing. Just sharing what I thought while reading you post.
That's a good point. There is a distinction between letting things go, which is action, and Wu Wei, which is more of a state
Oh yes I remember in sifu when you beat everyone but let them live ,we wei has cometh
Wu wei is what happens when one understands the nature of existence. It's not something you can make yourself do. It's something you've always done, which is kind of the joke. Wu-Wei is what you realize you were always doing when the delusion of separation finally collapses in on itself.
It's like the dude learning to learn on land in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall".
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