What Is Wu-Wei?
The paradox concerned in making an attempt to not attempt obsessed the early Chinese language thinkers I spent the primary years of my profession finding out. Daoist or Confucian, all of them shared the religious excellent of wu-wei, or “easy motion.”
Wu-wei is a frame of mind the place you lose the sense of your self as an agent and are fully absorbed in what you might be doing. You’re spontaneous, unselfconscious, and relaxed. Consequently, you progress by way of the world with good ease, which regularly quantities to better success in all the pieces you do.
It thus resembles the thought of stream — a state attained while you cease feeling the hassle of a activity or exercise and lose monitor of the passage of time. But wu-wei is a broader and, in my opinion, extra useful idea.
Move, as outlined and popularized by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, PhD, calls for experiences through which the problem and complexity are continuously ramped up. As your ability improves, you require tougher conditions to expertise stream so that you don’t grow to be bored. But, if an exercise is too exhausting, you’ll grow to be annoyed.
Csikszentmihalyi was emphatic about distinguishing true stream from pretend variations. Vegging out in entrance of the TV or getting misplaced in social media can present a few of stream’s hallmarks, equivalent to lack of self and never noticing the passage of time. Nonetheless, these experiences have a tendency to depart us enervated and depressed, not happy and relaxed. Doomscrolling is absorbing, nevertheless it isn’t stream.
On the identical time, there’s an issue with defining true stream when it comes to complexity and problem. Whereas this description suits sure actions, like mountain climbing or aggressive tennis, it fails to seize the true stream experiences of most individuals.
That is the place wu-wei comes into play. For the early Chinese language, the defining characteristic of wu-wei was that it concerned an individual residing in concord with the metaphysical order of the universe, which they referred to as “the Means” or “the Dao.”
The equal, for contemporary Westerners who may not imagine in a supernatural Means, can be the expertise of changing into absorbed in one thing that’s each larger than you and useful in your eyes.
That second half is vital.
We get into wu-wei when taking part in with our toddlers as a result of we love them and worth spending time with them, not as a result of sitting cross-legged on the ground attending a tea social gathering of stuffed animals is inherently difficult or advanced.
We emerge from weeding the backyard feeling happy and fulfilled as a result of we really feel that contact with nature — with rising, residing issues — is significant, and as a result of we have the benefit of our wholesome flowers and greens attending to unfold their roots and breathe freely.
We expertise wu-wei after we are involved with issues that matter to us.