Tao Of Wu Quotes

Confusion is a gift from God. Those times when you feel most desperate for a solution, sit. Wait. The information will become clear. The confusion is there to guide you. Seek detachment and become the producer of your life.

Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing yourself is Enlightenment. - Lao-Tzu

It's harder to make the glass than break the glass.

The first person you have to resurrect is yourself

Life comes when you have knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, when you can see for real, touch, and feel for real, know for real. Then you are truly living.

When we learn to work with our own Inner Nature, and with the natural laws operating around us, we reach the level of Wu Wei. Then we work with the natural order of things and operate on the principle of minimal effort. Since the natural world follows that principle, it does not make mistakes. Mistakes are made–or imagined–by man, the creature with the overloaded Brain who separates himself from the supporting network of natural laws by interfering and trying too hard. When you work with Wu Wei, you put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No stress, no struggle. Egotistical Desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole. Cleverness tries to devise craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don’t belong. Knowledge tries to figure out why round pegs fit into round holes, but not square holes. Wu Wei doesn’t try. It 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. When you work with Wu Wei, you have no real accidents. Things may get a little Odd at times, but they work out. You don’t have to try very hard to make them work out; you just let them. [...] If you’re in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time. Later on you can look back and say, "Oh, now I understand. That had to happen so that those could happen, and those had to happen in order for this to happen…" Then you realize that even if you’d tried to make it all turn out perfectly, you couldn’t have done better, and if you’d really tried, you would have made a mess of the whole thing. Using Wu Wei, you go by circumstances and listen to your own intuition. "This isn’t the best time to do this. I’d better go that way." Like that. When you do that sort of thing, people may say you have a Sixth Sense or something. All it really is, though, is being Sensitive to Circumstances. That’s just natural. It’s only strange when you don’t listen.

Truth out of season bears no fruit" To me, that means two things. One: There's a time and place for every kind of knowledge to flourish. Two: The personal characteristics of great messengers are usually irrelevant.

Decay is inevitable, but death is not.

In a way, when TV went digital, we lost a foothold in reality. Now, we'll never truly know if what we're watching is real or has been altered and transmitted to us. Digital culture brought a step away from truth.

In the words of Chuang-tse, the mind of Wu Wei “flows like water, reflects like a mirror, and responds like an echo.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. A good artist lets their intuition take them wherever it wants to.

So love, like wisdom, dissolves you and then resolves you. It breaks down your ego and puts you back together again properly. When

I don’t think a computer can process information to even 10 percent of what the human brain does. The brain’s got mad shit going on in your body right now.

Stop trying to imitate what the sages have done. That's past, and though it might have been appropriate at the time, that time is over. The present is alive. Don't use what's dead as a guide to what's alive.

The efficiency of Wu Wei is like that of water flowing over and around the rocks in its path—not the mechanical, straight-line approach that usually ends up short-circuiting natural laws, but one that evolves from an inner sensitivity to the natural rhythm of things.

Mastery is not to control; but to allow the Tao to flow freely through you

When we learn to work with our own Inner Nature, and with the natural laws operating around us, we reach the level of Wu Wei.

Know others by knowing yourself. Overcome others by overcoming yourself. Understanding what is enough is enough. Presence is perseverance. Coming to stillness is forging ahead. Find life by accepting death.

Look. Forget how smart you think you are. Stop wanting everything, as though there is something out there that will cure or fix you. Just make things happen by allowing them to happen Then everything will turn out alright.

Measure yourself the way you measure others. Measure others the way you measure your village. Measure your village the way you measure your country. Measure your country the way you measure the Tao. And measure the Tao by what is in you.

Gangsta comes in many forms. You can watch a movie like Die Hard, which is full of violence that’s in your face. But if you watch a movie like The Godfather, the violence is subtle—it’s in a word, a nod, a gesture. I think you walk out of Die Hard and leave something in the theater. With Godfather, you walk out with something put in you. Hip-hop is the same way.

They found security in letting go rather than in holding on and, in so doing, developed an attitude toward life that might be called psychophysical judo. Nearly twenty-five centuries ago, the Chinese sages Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu had called it wu-wei, which is perhaps best translated as “action without forcing.” It is sailing in the stream of the Tao, or course of nature, and navigating the currents of li (organic pattern)—a word that originally signified the natural markings in jade or the grain in wood. As this attitude spread and prevailed in the wake of Vibration Training, people became more and more indulgent about eccentricity in life-style, tolerant of racial and religious differences, and adventurous in exploring unusual ways of loving.

Keep sharpening, and the knife becomes useless.

mirror,

Linear logic measures only the four dimensions: length, width, depth, and time. But in the fifth dimension, energy surpasses time. Light surpasses time. Time is just a controller of certain planes. It’s not the master. The true master is consciousness, and I mean true consciousness—not simply being awake—I’m talking about the consciousness that never sleeps. The part of you that is aware of your consciousness. There’s a part of you that’s always there, always consistent, that represents your true self—the part connected to God. That’s who you gotta get in touch with.

The highest goodness is like water. Water is beneficial to all things but not contend. It stays in places which others despise. Therefore it is near Tao. The weakest things in the world can overmatch the strongest things in the world. Nothing in the world can be compared to water for its weak and yielding nature; yet in attacking the hard and strong nothing proves better than water. For there is no alternative to it. The weak can overcome and the yielding can overcame the hard. This all the world knows but does not practice. This again is the practice of ‘wu-wel’ and nonviolence. Water may be weak, pliable, fluid, but its action is not one of running away from an obstacle. On the contrary, it gives at the point of resistance, envelopes the object and passes beyond it. Ultimately it will wear down the hardest rock. Water is a more telling symbol than land… crossing the river to get to the other side is, again, attaining the state of enlightenment.

WU WEI flow of Life governed by Tao flow of change spontaneous natural effortless acting through non-action connecting with Earth and Moon and Sun through being not inert or lazy or passive but swimming swiftly within the current merging Life with Tao quiet and watchful not-interfering receptive alert directly connected acting without action trusting detached without desire spontaneous natural effortless Living

Confusion is a gift from God. Those times when you feel most desperate for a solution, sit. Wait. The information will become clear. The confusion is there to guide you. Seek detachment and become the producer of your life.

When we neglect others out of superficial wisdom, fake respect, phony knowledge—we tell ourselves it’s their life; we say it’s not our responsibility; we don’t want to get involved. Fuck that. Get involved. Or we’ll all feel the pain.

tao k’o tao, fei ch’ang tao. ming k’o ming, fei ch’ang ming. wu, ming t’ien ti chih shih. yu, ming wan wu chih mu. ku ch’ang wu, yü yi kuan ch’i miao. ch’ang yu, yü yi kuan ch’i chiao. tz’u liang chê, t’ung ch’u erh yi ming. t’ung wei chih hsüan. hsüan chih yu hsüan. chung miao chih mên.

A man hungry for knowledge gains something every day. A man who already knows loses something every day. strips down to the essence strips down the essence to nothing, and leaves nothing unknown. To rule, let go. Let people go; let yourself go; let the empire go. Anarchy is the only art of rulership.

What I'm teaching you is easy to understand. Perhaps you're thinking too hard. What I'm teaching you is easy to put into practice. Perhaps you should relax. What I'm teaching you has a source, but you're expecting a result. You want the precious jade; I offer only homespun cloth. Which will keep you warm?

Over and over Lao Tzu says wei wu wei: Do not do. Doing not-doing. To act without acting. Action by inaction. You do nothing yet it gets done... It’s not a statement susceptible to logical interpretation, or even to a syntactical translation into English; but it’s a concept that transforms thought radically, that changes minds. The whole book is both an explanation and a demonstration of it.

There is a saying in the army: I do not presume to be the master, But become the guest. I do not dare advance an inch, But retreat a foot. Shih wei hsing wu hsing This is called moving without moving, Rolling up sleeves without baring your arms, Repelling without opposing, Wielding without a weapon. There is no disaster greater than Contempt for the enemy. Contempt for the enemy— What a treasure is lost!

The essential Taoist approach to life is captured in the phrase ching-jing wu-wei, literally, “sitting still doing nothing.” Doing nothing doesn’t mean sitting around all day like a bump on a log, but rather doing only those things that really need to be done and doing them in a way that does not run counter to the natural order of Tao and the patterned flow of cosmic forces. It means engaging only in spontaneous, unpremeditated activity, doing things purely for their own sake rather than for ulterior motives, and living in harmony with rather than trying to conquer nature.

The existence of two mutually antagonistic tendencies, both striving to drag man into extreme attitudes and entangle him in the world, whether on the material or spiritual level, sets him at variance with himself and accordingly demands the existence of a counterweight. This is the “irrational third,” tao. Hence the sage’s anxious endeavour to live in harmony with tao, lest he fall into the conflict of opposites. Since tao is irrational, it is not something that can be got by the will, as Lao-tzu repeatedly emphasizes. This lends particular significance to another specifically Chinese concept, wu-wei. Wu-wei means “not-doing” (which is not to be confused with “doing nothing”). Our rationalistic “doing,” which is the greatness as well as the evil of our time, does not lead to tao.

Furthermore, the Taoist perspective does not see causation in the Western way, whereby each event is separate and stuck together with other separate events. On the contrary, no events can be connected, because connection in this sense would still imply separation. So the Taoists perceive the universe as one single event, with differing fluctuations in the unified field of Tao, in the way that a wave is distinct from the ocean, but it is still the ocean.

The origin of synchronicity comes from the union of the Way and the Eternal Self. The Eternal Self and the Way go together as one, and this is experienced as synchronicity. Synchronicity is the language of Tao that manifests in an individual’s life as a result of his or her harmony between the Eternal Self and the Way. In Vedanta, as I’ve mentioned, this is known as the connection between Atman (Eternal Self/ undifferentiated consciousness) and Brahman (irreducible essence/ ultimate reality). There is also the movement of energy in the manifest world (prakrti) and the stillness of pure awareness (Purusha) of the yogic philosophy of Patanjali.

The unconscious is never considered to be a reality of our existence, so it is cast off as a useless preoccupation of the spiritually confused. But that “useless” unconscious conspires with fate in bringing to life the miracle of synchronicity and a relationship with Tao.

The inscription behind the flame reads wu ji, meaning “without boundaries” and referring to the infinity of existence.

Water acts in the same way as mind. When water is disturbed, it is not transparent or reflective, as the waves and ripples obscure its essence. But when water is completely still, it is in its pure, true state of transparency and reflectivity. The nature of mind is stillness, which is beyond effort. Yet the waves and ripples of conditioning obscure this truth. Emptying your mind of these conditioned habits and latent tendencies, you come face to face, so to speak, with the Tao. The Tao of the Absolute is within our natural stillness, and this natural state is where spontaneity is effortlessly born. Stillness is where the virtue of wu-wei is lived. If we come into contact with the still point of the Tao, then we begin to nourish the rest of existence through the art of living wu-wei.

three more modern and somewhat less poetical books: Effortless Living: Wu-Wei and the Spontaneous State of Natural Harmony by Jason Gregory, Edward Slingerland’s Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity, and Tao: The Watercourse Way by Alan Watts. Iddo Landau’s discussion of the ‘reverse golden rule,’ and the added cruelty we reserve for when we’re talking to ourselves, comes from his book Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World,

The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu-Lei Masters,

The Pooh Way "By the time it came to the edge of the Forest the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, "There is no hurry. We shall get there some day." Now we come to what would be called the most characteristic element of Taoism-in-action. In Chinese, it is known as Wu Wei. It is also the most characteristic element of Pooh-in-action.

Before laissez-faire there was wu wei. “Practise not doing and everything will fall into place,” says the Tao Te Ching, Taoism’s primer.

El Tao Te Ching, también conocido como Dao De Jing, es uno de los textos más importantes del Taoísmo. Atribuido a Laozi (Lao-Tsé), un sabio que se cree vivió en el siglo VI a.C., este libro está compuesto por 81 capítulos breves que ofrecen enseñanzas sobre la naturaleza del Tao y cómo vivir en consonancia con él. El Tao Te Ching se divide en dos partes principales: Tao (El Camino): Los primeros capítulos exploran la naturaleza indefinible del Tao, describiendo su omnipresencia y su papel como fuente de toda existencia. Estos capítulos destacan la importancia de la humildad, la flexibilidad y la simplicidad. Te (La Virtud): Los capítulos posteriores se centran en Te, la manifestación del Tao en la vida diaria. Ofrecen consejos prácticos sobre cómo vivir de manera virtuosa, promoviendo valores como la compasión, la moderación y la no interferencia (wu wei). Principales Temas: Wu Wei: La acción sin esfuerzo, donde se alienta a fluir con las circunstancias naturales en lugar de resistirse a ellas. Simplicidad y Humildad: Se valora la vida sencilla y humilde, alejada de las complicaciones y ambiciones excesivas. Dualidad y Unidad: El Tao Te Ching explora la interconexión de opuestos, como el yin y el yang, y cómo estas fuerzas complementarias crean equilibrio en el universo.

Many cultures consider an island to be the ideal home. First, because you’re surrounded by water, which is life. Second, because you’re isolated from the masses, which allows you to find yourself, to develop inner strengths you couldn’t find anywhere else. An island shows you the true nature of life itself.

This receptive, feminine, yin trust in the universe nourishes humanity, because people begin to take shelter under the sage’s wisdom. In emptying the faculties of conditioning, a sage becomes a beacon of light for the Tao to move through to inspire others with its wisdom, bringing the world back into harmony.

We judge everything according to our beliefs, and as a result we cannot clearly perceive the still point of the Tao. But in the power of sincere humility, a sage meets everybody on common ground and can address any problem, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. A sage can only be a sage if she has this capacity for receptivity and does not shy away from the spiritually ignorant.

The Tao loves and nourishes all, and so does the sage, because her personality, polluted with petty beliefs, cravings, and desires, has evaporated into thin air, and she naturally exhibits loving traits such as compassion, empathy, and forgiveness.

Nondoing is a laughable way of living, according to people in general. It is the most useless way of being that anyone can conceive of. Yet the act of leaving things alone allows the Tao to bring harmony into the world without our personal interference.

One who fully comprehends wu-wei understands that developing healthy relationships with other people is the spiritual adhesive that harmonizes the Tao among humanity.

wu-wei, or “not forcing,” which means to take the line of least resistance in all of one’s actions, and by doing so, create more strength.

The Divine Feminine Tao Invites Us to Act The Lao-Tzu’s Tao Te Ching portrays the Tao as “mother,” “virgin,” and “womb.” She is the “immortal void” who endlessly “returns to source” to renew life again and again. Quoting from my own translation of Poem 6 (Anderson, in press), the Tao is The immortal void Called the dark womb, the dark womb’s gate From her Creation takes root An unbroken gossamer That prevails without effort. From her “dark womb,” all life flows. To align with the Tao as mother, virgin, and womb is to discover her path to peace and wellbeing with ourselves, each other, the earth, and the natural world. At a time in history when human greed and aggression are out of control and threatening life as we know it, her message to us is also a warning. The great message of the Tao Te Ching is the ordinariness of peace and wellbeing that arises from spontaneous action that seeks no gain for the self. This is to enact the path of wei wu wei, meaning to act without acting or do without doing. Wei wu wei does not mean doing nothing, not thinking, not traveling, not initiating projects, not cooking dinner, not planting a garden in the spring, and so on. To the contrary. For in leaving self-gain aside, our actions arise naturally and spontaneously to meet concrete situations and events without plotting or maneuvering in advance or expecting to be liked, appreciated, or rewarded for what we do. Aligning with the Tao is to seek what is lowest and most needy like a mother might act naturally and spontaneously on behalf of a child in danger. Quoting from my translation of Poem 8 (Anderson, in press): The highest good is like water Bringing goodness to all things without struggle In seeking low places spurned by others The Tao resembles water. In so doing, we attend to what matters most—not tomorrow but right now. Per the situation, our actions may be swift or slow, but they will in time resolve obstacles at their source in the same way that water carves out canyons and moves mountains. What matters most will vary for each of us. This is wei wu wei in action. Over time, enacting this feminine path to peace will impact all our relations with others, including animals and other species, each other, our families and communities, the conduct of governments, relationships between nations and peoples, and with planet Earth. The wisdoms of the Divine Feminine Tao may be applied to our personal initiatives and our response to personal and modern crises, including meeting the challenges of the current coronavirus pandemic. Wei wu wei invites us to act spontaneously and naturally like water, determining its own course and leaving self-gain aside.

The I Ching ~ Hexagram 52 Ken. Keeping Still. Mountain over Mountain. Learn inner silence. Bring a meditative mind into all activity or non activity. Achieve total stillness and be a mountain. Such is Wu Wei... When the mind is highly active it will not accommodate vision or inspiration. It is the cup already full. Mountain over Mountain is the opening of the infinite mind through the silencing of the mind conceptual. Ken Keeping Still arises as a reminder to take a break from the limited outer world and journey into the Way. Travel the inner universe of the mind infinite; the heart eternal, and the body microcosmic. . Purity of meditation is the key. Simply abide for a passage in the void of a mind at peace. Receive the endless grace and blessing of the eternal Oneness of the Tao that pervades everywhere always Here in the infinite Now.

The creative quietude of philosophical Taoism means to align one’s daily life to the Tao, to ride its boundless tide and delight in its flow…and to perfect a life of wu wei- pure effectiveness and creative quietude (supreme activity and supreme relaxation.) We are nurtured by a force that is infinitely subtle, infinitely intricate; it is a consummate gracefulness born from an abundant vitality that has no need for abruptness or violence. One simply lets the Tao flow in and flow out again until all Life becomes a Dance in which there is neither feverishness or imbalance. Water is the closest parallel to the Tao and the prototype of wu wei. It is supple, strong, and sensuous; and it adapts and supports and buoys and erodes.