Essay Edition
This essay is a near-verbatim adaptation of the live spoken teaching, edited only for continuity and readability.
There is a term in Chinese that comes from Lao Tzu and Taoism: Wu Wei. It means "without action," and it is an esoteric topic in spirituality that can be somewhat elusive to grasp. It does not simply mean to do nothing. We cannot do nothing—there is no such thing as doing nothing. The universe is constantly happening. The movements of the universe are always causing transmutation. Everything is a cause to everything else, even when we believe we are doing nothing. Our biological mechanisms are still moving heat from our bodies, still interacting with the environment.
So, Wu Wei is about effortlessness. Another word for it is spontaneity. It means action without effort—Wu Wei. Today, I want to explore a bit more about what that term means, and enter into a more esoteric understanding of it. We will really connect with the subtlety, so that it can become a powerful force in our lives. Because it is very powerful.
Silence is a form of action. I can feel the degree to which one is listening to the silence as I speak—the moments when attention is given to it, and the moments when it is not. Implicit in Wu Wei is the spontaneity of choicelessness—to act without crossroads, without a division between this and that. Spontaneity means that the actions taken are without premeditation. There is a choicelessness.
Implicit in Wu Wei is also non-resistance. We move around obstacles, like a river moves around a piece of land or a tree. Wu Wei is powerful because in Wu Wei, we do not dissipate energy in resistance. Every moment is an opportunity. In its uniqueness, it is complemented by a perfectly aligned response. Therefore, destiny becomes an unfolding that is revealed before us as we watch ourselves act—without action, without resistance, from silence.
Mathematics can be done this way. One can give a sermon this way, as I am doing now. Wu Wei has an implicit positivity. Everything is an opportunity. A large class has its benefits; a small class has its benefits. One sees the best in things and uses it to their advantage.
There is an element of trust and faith. One is dealt a hand of cards, and in that hand, they may be prompted to bluff in poker because the hand does not have very good cards, or they may use the good cards in the hand. The spontaneity of this effortless action requires listening. One must get out of the way and act, without self-consciousness, without decision. Decisions are revealed from moment to moment.
One is both rich and poor—poor in the sense that they carry very little, rich in the sense that they have everything they need. It comes through them in the moment, and this allows them to respond precisely to the needs of the moment, which can never be a conformity to a pattern established in the past.
When we act with spontaneity, it is essential that we feel it is not us acting. It is not even the universe acting through us, but that we are the cosmic body in its totality, acting as one with all, on behalf of all. And therefore, we are love. We are both the silence and eternality behind transmutation, and we are the unity within the multifarious, myriad forms expressed as transient manifestation.
It is important to recognize that resistance is the dissipation of energy. Effort is a form of resistance. In Wu Wei, we have patience—the patience to wait and act when the timing is right. Because of this acceptance and lack of resistance, the heart expands energetically. There is a kundalini transformation—the qi. Since we are talking about Wu Wei, we can talk about qi here—a different paradigm.
The qi will literally expand. To become the universe, the heart has to accept the universe. This is the energetic mechanism. When I stop resisting, my heart dantien—the central dantien—expands.
The individual who possesses Wu Wei is perceived by the subtle observer as powerful. They may be gentle and quiet, graceful, soft-spoken. But to one who sees, they recognize the power of poise, the power of self-command—or perhaps a better way to say it is, freedom from selfhood.
One can practice Wu Wei as a way of life. In fact, that is exactly what Lao Tzu calls his book—The Way of Life. Lao Tzu's book, The Way of Life, is an ancient manuscript, thousands of years old. So we can practice this as a way of life. And when we live by this, we become masters of it. Every action, every moment, can be an exercise in our commitment to Wu Wei. One will practice Wu Wei when they understand its benefits. Without it, we are dissipating energy. We are resisting destiny.
A prerequisite to Wu Wei is the bliss of being. In order to really embrace it, one must fall in love with silence. Fall in love with love, with the energy of being blissful in the moment. One is no longer completing themselves because there is some imposed sense of insufficiency. And therefore, they have the freedom to act as the moment necessitates, not on behalf of their own limitation, but on behalf of their freedom, as a movement within the concurrence of the whole.
So Wu Wei can be a way of life, and we can practice it in our challenges, in our daily activities, in our interrelationships with others. We can make sure to keep it with us as our guide as we pursue our goals. And we most definitely can use it in mathematics.
A good example and practice of Wu Wei, formally, if one is willing to practice mathematics, is to recognize that it is not up to us to see the answer to an equation. Silence reveals it. When we stop dissipating the energy and accept our state of unknowingness until it unfolds into higher degrees of knowingness. Mathematically speaking, we can take this mathematical inquiry into a more generalized contemplation. Whatever it is that we may be contemplating, we can apply Wu Wei—the effortless non-doing, the spontaneity of thought.
So, you could be contemplating mathematics, Wu Wei, or your business. But it is paramount that we see the correct course of action. Wu Wei is a state of seeing in the moment what must be done. So there is a great deal of intelligence associated with it.
Energetically, we increase our power. The river may be deep and swift, but it adapts to the terrain. It possesses a great deal of power—immense power—like the ocean. Thousands upon thousands of gallons of water flow, unstoppable by any tree, animal, or land mass. It will always flow to the ocean.
So when we do not give away our power, and adapt like that river, like water, this is the energy of water. We build, in a very real metaphysical sense, power within ourselves. We stop giving it away, sacrificing it in exchange for some small desire, and instead allow the great desire of the universe to become our own.
It is probably not that popular, because when you look at the outer packaging of Wu Wei, it appears you are not going to get what you want. But when you read the fine print, it says you do not know what you want. You are going to get what you actually want. Most people are so ensnared in their idea of what they must become, or what they are, that they do not receive the blessing of, first, what they want to become, and second, what they want to be in the moment. They do not know what is possible.
Dispassion and detachment come from a great deal of richness. When one no longer cares because they are so rich—cosmic absorption, bliss, beauty, love. Whatever we receive is always through the moment.
It has the stamp of reality. The future and the past are merely projections of imagination, stored in brain cells or some other form of cognition and its mechanisms. But the present is where substance and joy truly occur—the substance of joy.
It helps to have sangha, to be still together. In a world of people who are caught in becoming, it is difficult to step out as a solitary practitioner. As we sit here together, we consecrate ourselves to the silence and make it more accessible to each other. A river does not flow as a single drop. It flows when one mountain stream meets another, and another, until its mass is so great that it must flow through any obstacle. So we are mountain streams, and we can become a river ourselves.
But we must break free from the momentum and inertia of humanity to do so. Lao Tzu, as far as I understand, lived in nature. He stepped away from humanity, where it was easier to practice these principles. So we must create the correct conditions, whether through sangha, seclusion, solitude, nature, or any other form that works for us. We do this to retain our power, which we need—spirit's wish for existence. To maintain our freedom, so we can remain liberated from form and connected to formlessness.
So let us begin our meditation. In Wu Wei, there is an art to doing less—less explanation. Less is more.
So we just begin. As we meditate here, meditate on Wu Wei. Meditation is not a doing. Let it dawn upon you. Release becoming. You are poise and power, beauty and silence. As you meditate, continue to move through the planes of light, shedding layer by layer of density until you bask in luminosity, fluidity, and energy. My life becomes more and more brilliant. Wu Wei opens the doors—the planes of light, power, and it is...
Purify yourself. Of the residual impressions. To become that mountain stream, you must melt the solidity of form and flow. A central part of Wu Wei is heart. There is an ambient power everywhere.
When you are ready, come out of the meditation into a new form of meditation. How valuable is this practice—to have an uncaused happiness and unobscured perception.
I am grateful for our Sangha. Coming together like this is a profound purification—to gather once a week. Dissolution—it purifies, and then there is the ocean of light, the greatness, the power. It is not even ours, but at the same time, we are it, and we become one with it. Beautiful.
Perhaps you will want to read The Way of Life by Lao Tzu. Or even just read about Lao Tzu—just look him up. If I have not read it, I need to finish it. It is written like poems. Maybe I need a different translation. Find a translation that resonates with you.
Thank you.
Full Transcript
Opening Context and Introduction to Wu Wei
Adam Wes Hi, Andrea.
It is just the two of us.
Andrea P Yes, everyone is busy.
Yes.
There is a term in Chinese that comes from Lao Tzu and Taoism: Wu Wei. It means "without action," and it is an esoteric topic in spirituality that can be somewhat elusive to grasp.
It does not simply mean to do nothing. We cannot do nothing—there is no such thing as doing nothing. The universe is constantly happening. The movements of the universe are always causing transmutation. Everything is a cause to everything else, even when we believe we are doing nothing.
Our biological mechanisms are still moving heat from our bodies, still interacting with the environment.
So, Wu Wei is about effortlessness. Another word for it is spontaneity. It means action without effort—Wu Wei.
Today, we are going to learn a bit more about what that term means, and explore a more esoteric understanding of it. We will really connect with the subtlety, so that it can become a powerful force in our lives. Because it is very powerful.
Silence is a form of action. I can feel the degree to which you are listening to the silence as I speak—the moments when you give it your attention, and the moments when you do not.
Effortlessness, Nonresistance, and Energetic Power
Implicit in Wu Wei is the spontaneity of choicelessness—to act without crossroads, without a division between this and that. Spontaneity means that the actions taken are without premeditation. There is a choicelessness.
Implicit in Wu Wei is also non-resistance. We move around obstacles, like a river moves around a piece of land or a tree. Wu Wei is powerful because in Wu Wei, we do not dissipate energy in resistance.
Every moment is an opportunity. In its uniqueness, it is complemented by a perfectly aligned response. Therefore, destiny becomes an unfolding that is revealed before us as we watch ourselves act—without action, without resistance, from silence.
Mathematics can be done this way. One can give a sermon this way, as I am doing now.
Wu Wei has an implicit positivity. Everything is an opportunity. A large class has its benefits; a small class has its benefits. One sees the best in things and uses it to their advantage.
There is an element of trust and faith. One is dealt a hand of cards, and in that hand, they may be prompted to bluff in poker because the hand does not have very good cards, or they may use the good cards in the hand.
The spontaneity of this effortless action requires listening. One must get out of the way and act, without self-consciousness, without decision. Decisions are revealed from moment to moment.
One is both rich and poor—poor in the sense that they carry very little, rich in the sense that they have everything they need. It comes through them in the moment, and this allows them to respond precisely to the needs of the moment, which can never be a conformity to a pattern established in the past.
When we act with spontaneity, it is essential that we feel it is not us acting. It is not even the universe acting through us, but that we are the cosmic body in its totality, acting as one with all, on behalf of all. And therefore, we are love.
We are both the silence and eternality behind transmutation, and we are the unity within the multifarious, myriad forms expressed as transient manifestation.
It is important to recognize that resistance is the dissipation of energy. Effort is a form of resistance. In Wu Wei, we have patience—the patience to wait and act when the timing is right.
Because of this acceptance and lack of resistance, the heart expands energetically. There is a kundalini transformation—the qi. Since we are talking about Wu Wei, we can talk about qi here—a different paradigm.
The qi will literally expand. To become the universe, the heart has to accept the universe. This is the energetic mechanism. When I stop resisting, my heart dantien—the central dantien—expands.
The individual who possesses Wu Wei is perceived by the subtle observer as powerful. They may be gentle and quiet, graceful, soft-spoken. But to one who sees, they recognize the power of poise, the power of self-command—or perhaps a better way to say it is, freedom from selfhood.
Wu Wei as a Way of Life and Practical Application
One can practice Wu Wei as a way of life. In fact, that is exactly what Lao Tzu calls his book—The Way of Life, which I am holding up here. Andrea? Lao Tzu's book, The Way of Life, is an ancient manuscript, thousands of years old. So we can practice this as a way of life.
And when we live by this, we become masters of it. Every action, every moment, can be an exercise in our commitment to Wu Wei. One will practice Wu Wei when they understand its benefits. Without it, we are dissipating energy. We are resisting destiny.
A prerequisite to Wu Wei is the bliss of being. In order to really embrace it, one must fall in love with silence. Fall in love with love, with the energy of being blissful in the moment.
One is no longer completing themselves because there is some imposed sense of insufficiency. And therefore, they have the freedom to act as the moment necessitates, not on behalf of their own limitation, but on behalf of their freedom, as a movement within the concurrence of the whole.
So Wu Wei can be a way of life, and we can practice it in our challenges, in our daily activities, in our interrelationships with others. We can make sure to keep it with us as our guide as we pursue our goals. And we most definitely can use it in mathematics.
A good example and practice of Wu Wei, formally, if one is willing to practice mathematics, is to recognize that it is not up to us to see the answer to an equation. Silence reveals it. When we stop dissipating the energy and accept our state of unknowingness until it unfolds into higher degrees of knowingness.
Mathematically speaking, we can take this mathematical inquiry into a more generalized contemplation. Whatever it is that we may be contemplating, we can apply Wu Wei—the effortless non-doing, the spontaneity of thought.
So, you could be contemplating mathematics, Wu Wei, or your business. But it is paramount that we see the correct course of action. Wu Wei is a state of seeing in the moment what must be done. So there is a great deal of intelligence associated with it.
Energetically, we increase our power. The river may be deep and swift, but it adapts to the terrain. It possesses a great deal of power—immense power—like the ocean. Thousands upon thousands of gallons of water flow, unstoppable by any tree, animal, or land mass. It will always flow to the ocean.
So when we do not give away our power, and adapt like that river, like water, this is the energy of water. We build, in a very real metaphysical sense, power within ourselves. We stop giving it away, sacrificing it in exchange for some small desire, and instead allow the great desire of the universe to become our own.
It is probably not that popular, because when you look at the outer packaging of Wu Wei, it appears you are not going to get what you want. But when you read the fine print, it says you do not know what you want. You are going to get what you actually want.
Most people are so ensnared in their idea of what they must become, or what they are, that they do not receive the blessing of, first, what they want to become, and second, what they want to be in the moment. They do not know what is possible.
Dispassion and detachment come from a great deal of richness. When one no longer cares because they are so rich—cosmic absorption, bliss, beauty, love. Whatever we receive is always through the moment.
It has the stamp of reality. The future and the past are merely projections of imagination, stored in brain cells or some other form of cognition and its mechanisms. But the present is where substance and joy truly occur—the substance of joy.
Community Support, Meditation Practice, and Group Reflections
It helps to have sangha, to be still together. In a world of people who are caught in becoming, it is difficult to step out as a solitary practitioner.
As we sit here together, we consecrate ourselves to the silence and make it more accessible to each other. A river does not flow as a single drop. It flows when one mountain stream meets another, and another, until its mass is so great that it must flow through any obstacle. So we are mountain streams, and we can become a river ourselves.
But we must break free from the momentum and inertia of humanity to do so. Lao Tzu, as far as I understand, lived in nature. He stepped away from humanity, where it was easier to practice these principles.
So we must create the correct conditions, whether through sangha, seclusion, solitude, nature, or any other form that works for us. We do this to retain our power, which we need—spirit's wish for existence. To maintain our freedom, so we can remain liberated from form and connected to formlessness.
So let us begin our meditation. In Wu Wei, there is an art to doing less—less explanation. Less is more.
So we just begin.
As we meditate here, meditate on Wu Wei. Meditation is not a doing. Let it dawn upon you. Release becoming. You are poise and power, beauty and silence.
As you meditate, continue to move through the planes of light, shedding layer by layer of density until you bask in luminosity, fluidity, and energy. My life becomes more and more brilliant. Wu Wei opens the doors—the planes of light, power, and it is...
Purify yourself.
...impressions. To become that mountain stream, you must melt the solidity of form and flow.
A central part of Wu Wei is heart. There is an ambient power everywhere.
When you are ready, come out of the meditation into a new form of meditation. How valuable is this practice—to have an uncaused happiness and unobscured perception.
Thank you for being here. Wonderful. Would you like to share, Ariella? We cannot hear you yet.
AriellaShira Lewis That was amazing. Hi.
It was a blessing for us.
I had no idea where I was. I did not even know I was meditating until you started to talk.
Beautiful.
Wonderful.
Wonderful. How did you like the discussion? The topic?
AriellaShira Lewis Completely new to me. How do you spell Wu Wei?
W. U. W... E-I, I believe. I think it is E-I. It might be I-E. Wu Wei. I think it is W-W-E-I.
AriellaShira Lewis I have not heard of this before, so this is a whole new...
Chinese word.
AriellaShira Lewis Hmm. The world for me, thank you, thank you.
Thank you. How about you, David? Namaste, Ariella. Thanks for being here. I felt like this was a great talk for you. It really resonates with your practice. You are embodying the energy of it quite a bit already, so I was happy to see that you arrived.
David P Yes, this is very... me.
Nice.
David P And...
You liked the music too, did you not?
David P Yes.
Yes. I felt that.
David P I wanted to share that. It is interesting that you mention water, and the oceans, and the river. During my daily practice, the first thing I try to do is dissolve myself, right? Before sitting down and doing the specific meditation of the day, I always begin with this series of practices.
David P One of them is trying to, you know, just vanish—or to die, actually. To try to just die.
David P To die completely.
David P And then, after a few of them, I focus on the feeling of being inside the water, like in an ocean. When you go to the sea, when you go to the beach, and you are inside the water, it moves you here and there.
David P If you let the water take you—drugs, drug use, whatever—that is the feeling I try to connect with. Because it is immense, right? You can just feel the power of the ocean, the water, and it is...
The ocean of life.
David P And it helps me to connect with this greatness, right?
Yes. Greatness. I love it.
David P Yes.
I love how you are describing it. Beautiful.
David P So I really connected with a lot of what you said.
There was a lot of power in the group today. I think it is very powerful. I felt us bringing that together—it was wonderful. Well, thanks, David.
David P Thank you.
AriellaShira Lewis Adam, will... will this be... will what you shared in the talk be available on the website?
Adam Wes Yes, I am planning to put them up. I am a couple of weeks behind because I am working on a new version of the processor, but I will go ahead and upload it today with the old version. Then you will be able to read the entire essay.
Yay.
AriellaShira Lewis The citrus...
That is a lot, you should...
AriellaShira Lewis You sure.
I should re-read it a few times.
AriellaShira Lewis Yeah.
Thank you, Andreas. Andreas said it was beautiful. I have a terrible connection, but I will send you, Adam, a voice note. Thank you, Andrea. Thanks for being here.
So... Hmm. 702. Dum, dum dum.
I am grateful for our Sangha. Coming together like this is a profound purification—to gather once a week. David's word, dissolution—it purifies, and then there is the ocean of light, the greatness, the power. It is not even ours, but at the same time, we are it, and we become one with it. Beautiful. I love how you expressed that.
So... and perhaps you will want to read The Way of Life by Lao Tzu. Or even just read about Lao Tzu—just look him up on Wikipedia.
AriellaShira Lewis How do you spell that?
I am not sure I even finished this book. L-a-o-t-z-u. If I have not read it, I need to finish it. It is written like poems. Maybe I need a different translation. Find a translation that resonates with you.
Yes. Thank you.
Alright, everyone, nice to see you. See you next time. Namaste.
AriellaShira Lewis Where are your parents?
Oh, they were busy tonight. They will be back next week. They are going to watch the recording, or at least my mom is. They had some important things they needed to attend to, so... our bio are real.
AriellaShira Lewis Is that there? Okay. Yay. What?
What did he say?
AriellaShira Lewis That they are okay.
Oh, yes, they are fine.
AriellaShira Lewis I was worried.
No, no, they let me know. Last week they said they would be busy. Or, well, and this morning.
Alright, goodbye!
AriellaShira Lewis Bye, thank you.
You are welcome.