Lao-Zhuang taoism

 

Wu wei: dynamic waiting

"The sage does not move unless pushed." Zhuang Zi

I think that there is something special that I need to do that I am not doing. I think there is some rarefied psychic state that I should be in, and I am not in that state. But actually there is nothing out of the ordinary that I need to do now, and no special condition that my mind needs to be in other than the one it is in right now.

The only thing I need to do is wait, that is my single imperative. I am to wait until the configuration of my internal and external world becomes auspicious. When it becomes so configured it will become obvious to me what to do.

It is very hard to just wait, often painfully difficult to wait. Waiting (psychically staying right here) requires me to be fully present to the immediate state of my body and mind; this can be very unpleasant. But if I do not wait, the configuration of reality will not arrange itself in a manner where action will prove advantageous for me; the world around me will continue arrange itself in a pattern that makes it inauspicious to act. My field of perception will continue to indicate that the current advantage lies only in waiting, the very waiting which I am not able to accomplish.

Waiting is a subtle and dynamic psycho-neurological posture, it is neither mental nor physical inertia. The adept is the one who is continually waiting and simultaneously causing what needs to be done. "The sage knows without going, perceives without looking, accomplishes without doing." (LZ C 47)