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Further thoughts on wu wei From: taoistic_idiot Date: Mon, Sep 11 2000 6:26 pm Email: taoistic_id...@my-deja.com Groups: alt.philosophy.taoism A posting made in 1995 a few years back when I was working in Hongkong at that time about 5 years ago. Kind of introduction myself and to the way I can ramble and babble on and on. -------------------------------------- I have been away for a few days into Guangzhou, China in search of a certain Taichi master. He was away too. That absence was good as that led me to reflect further on what I have recently been reading in this list. There have been many descriptions of 'wu-wei' (the non-action/action with the Tao). Some have been highly technical. Some felt 'wu wei' to be 'avoidance of decisions'. They came from people who must have read intensively into the TTC and other books. I cannot say that they are wrong, those views are other facets and viewpoints of other people and may have been very valid to them. I used to have that opinion (that 'wu wei' is nonaction/avoidance ) in the past. I have even use those terms recently but they are more in the context of a direct translation rather than my impression of what 'wu wei' is. Neither can I say definately that my present impression of 'wu wei' is the correct view of either. I will be using some of the experiences I had to try to illuminate 'wu wei' from a different light. 'Wu wei' as a concept is difficult to gleam from books alone, used as we are to relying on books and words as a direct source of knowledge. I cannot give my defination or application of 'wu wei' on the whole as within the human sphere of economic/social interations with others and ourselves at this point. Instead, I try to start from a smaller application and work up from there. I ask your indulgence now as it is going to be a long rambling letter. Too many events were inter-twined with each other with direct bearing(to me at least) on my understanding of 'wu wei'. Flames are cheerfully solicited to illuminate my own way in case I have misled myself. For that, I need to go back to the beginning again and add further to that thumbnail sketch of myself I have given of myself earlier. I haven been interested in martial arts. I started out in Taekwando(Korean Karate) when I was 17 years old(about 27 years ago) and when I was living in Singapore. I went on to Goju-ryu karate and Shaolin kungfu. I found time to do judo, boxing, weight lifting,swimming,rugby as well. It was a miracle to my parents (and a bigger surprise to me) that the minutes of studies I squeezed in between all those allowed me to pass my examinations. The end result of that was a heavy-built 210 lb man quite capable and ready to handle violent confrontations and not readily pushable by anyone. That was what I thought. In my early twenty, from my sporadic attempts to read TTC and other books on Taoism, I came across that Taoist martial arts Taiji chuan. Taiji chuan was as inexplicable to me as the TTC in that people who trained themselves in moving very slowly can claimed themselves as martial artists and further claim that theirs is the 'Ultimate fist'(literal translation of taiji chuan). As there was this taji dojo near where I trained, I had to drop by to have a look. I, being more aware of what I have learned rather than what I have not learned, found it easy to make snide remarks at Taiji slow dance-like movements. My first surprise was that the senior Taiji instructor was so calm over my rather rude remarks. He accepted but turned that challenge to a request for Taiji practical demonstration. I returned later after his class was over. The second surprise was the ease he had in stopping a head-on rush I made and sending me back the same direction I came from without any effort. It was not like judo where you step aside and 'assist' the momentum of the other and 'using the strenght of the opponent against himself'. Eventually, I went into Taiji chuan and into a world where 'the soft overcomes the hard', 'the slow defeats the fast' and 'wu wei' determines the response in an encounter. I 'unlearned' all the earlier karate knowledge, and while unable to penetrate the deeper aspects of taiji, used our well developed skills in rationalizing to 'comphrehend' taiji instead. I was unable to discard the lifetime of scientific western perceptions and engineering background I had. Taiji was then interpreted by me in such a light, grouped and generalised until it became 'understandable'. Techniques were classified into vectorial forces and certain groups for effect/response. 'Energy' should no longer be the static stiffness of muscles. The whip-like effects from the legs and abdomenal/hips rotations were equated to the 'chi' talked about. As my 'tui shou'(pushing hands) encounters with others normally do not have me losing, I thought I won and I thought Taiji was within my grasp. My constant reading of the books on Taiji chuan and the TTC had me interpreting them with the perceptions of my experiences. Rationalizations fitted those nuggets into compartments in my mind with me feeling justifiably proud of my 'progress'. In 1990, I found myself in Taipei working on their mass rapid transit system. Early morning will have me in their parks doing my taiji excercises and 'tui shou' with uneven results. There are masters and Masters but I was yet unable to see or know the differences until the day I met Masters. There were two who cannot leave my mind now. One had to walk with a cane and need to be assisted by us to go up the steps leading to the Sun yat sen memorial hall. Another was a slim elderly man,so slim that a strong wind may blow him done, in the Hsingkongyuan(new Taipei park) south of the Taipei railway station. Their weight was about 80-90 lbs. When I 'push' against him, it was like trying to 'push' a wraith of smoke. When he 'pushed' on me, I *moved* back 10-15 feet with him still having a shy smile on his face. Seeing is not believing and even if you are *push*, you cannot believe it either. Apparently my own 'softness' that I thought I trained was only the softness I rationalised, I was using muscles but different sets of muscles. The 'chi' I had was self delusion, not to talk about the 'wu wei' that I thought I knew. Their explanation to me was the root cause was that I lacked the faith and all else stemmed from that. There were many other things I learned but not directly related to this letter. The 'softness' in one is not just the relaxation of the muscles, it is also the relaxation in the mind and soul and the discarding of one's ingrained perception one has to see/perceive of a viewpoint. We are so used to having a structure in our mind to perceive things/events that we do not see the same structure, so useful to our worldly perceptions that they blind us to other possibilities. They can 'listen' to me and know what I want to do even before I know it myself and nothing to do with their speed. They than use 'wu wei' to summon and 'explode' their 'chi force' to repel me beyond explanation in this letter, but only after they 'listened' and 'know' me. I can only crawl back to the classics of taiji chuan (and the TTC) to re-read that from a fresh perspective. What sunk in was that 'wu wei' (action/nonaction within the Tao) is not the means in itself. It is the end result and the process of 'knowing how to continue' AFTER the knowing of each situation in its entirelty. The usage of our normal perceptions, while useful in understanding a situation, MUST be recognised as imprisoning us in a frame of thought precluding all other possibilities. After the immense possibilities unfold themselves with their incalculable continuations, we will be paralysed as how to continue through 'our rational and logical deductions'(which is only rational and logical when seen from one viewpoint). Then and only then we trust in ourselves and let 'wu wei' guide us in our actions. This 'wu wei' is based on what we see is only a shadow of something more real. This is not a 'property' of Taoism. This theme occur and re-occur through many philosophies in both the East and West and in the New World. Buddhism has its multi headed/multi eyed Buddhas as its representations of 'knowing' the multiple aspects of one thing. In the West, Plato expounded that all natural phenomena are merely shadows of the eternal forms unperceivable by us. He even have his 'Myth of the cave'. What is really intriguing is the recent contacts made by Indians in the Columbian mountains to us warning us of the ecological imbalance we 'younger brothers' are creating. They revealed the training of their elders called Mamas. The training consist of chosen ones being kept and fed in dark caves for a period of 7-10 years after they are borned. The outside world were then described to the trainees by other Mamas. After that long period, they are then allowed to go out of the caves to see the 'reality' and to see that 'eternal forms', putting in practise the thoughts of Plato. The ability of Nobel prize winners in arriving at their key concepts, is in my mind, another demonstration of 'wu wei'. Their flash of insights whether in dreams or in moments of reflections, normally breaking the norms of the established thoughts, are their 'discarding of the existing structures' to see the truth behind the shadows. After that, it is just mere technical hard work to write and published their papers. But it was the 'wu wei' that led them to it. For me, I rather just try to drink when I am thirsty and eat when I am hungry. Regards The Idiotic Taoist Chinese - jin jou yeo jiu jin jou juoi literal - now I have the wine now I will be drunk in my mind - At this and every instant of time, live and savour all aspects of happiness and of being alive. |