Wu Wei — Doing Nothing 無爲

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

Wu Wei 無爲 .

Combined two words.

Yet we should understand what they mean separately.

Wu 無

Wu is interpreted as “nothing”, which is actually not the case. Wu is like a verb or a pattern of action. When things are Wu’d, then another happening can begin again. Why is that so?

The simplest way to understand the word for Wu, I’d like to use the metaphor of our digestive system.

If you are chewing food in your mouth, you are busy chewing and so the next stop, which is the stomach, cannot get his food. But, you can’t just keep chewing it forever, right?

Then, what do you do?

You want the mouth to be in the state of Wu, meaning to swallow it and send the food to the next stop, and now the mouth is “emptied” while the next stop can start its work.

Wu is not “nothing”, it is just to give whatever the next stop should have away, and so the transaction can complete and the next one can start. You need to give all the things to somewhere that needs it or just like your digestive system, it’s the next level down that needs it.

After the food is dumped to the next stop, then the first stop is now in the stage of “Wu” and can welcome new foods again. Wu is not the food that disappeared…