Non-Doing is "No Big Deal"!

  Reading Edward Slingerland's excellent book, Trying Not To Try , has lead me to reflect that there are two distinct attitudes (perhaps among others) to the notion of wu-wei, or non-doing. One is to treat it as a kind of achievement which comes from many years of discipline and exposure to ancient arts, as the Confucian strand suggests. The other is to try to let go of every marker of achievement and live according to one's innermost nature, as Taoists might suggest. I am wondering if the other option is simply to suggest that non-doing is not an achievement at all, but is rather one of many essential aspects of how a person can engage the world and others with less anxiety and attachment. Rather than treating this attribute as some kind of goal or end in itself, would it perhaps be more helpful to see it as a an aspect of one's existence? The approach of looking at non-doing as one of many aspects of being shifts it away from a monolithic aim, and positions it within a pluralistic realm of attributes which forms the toolkit to how people can harmonize in society.
   Why would I prefer to take a pluralist view on this? I think it's because lately, in the midst of all the plans and daily happenings, I am under the impression that there is simply no one redeeming attribute, strategy, approach or attitude that is going to successfully bring a person through life's trials. To try to idolize one attribute is to distort it in some way by projecting all of one's deepest hope or fear onto it. Thus, for some people, the notion of non-doing gets mapped onto an associative process that might include nirvana, regression to an early phase of  life, not having to work or make any special effort to do anything...all of which are distortions of the original context of non-doing, which is more like a non-attached way of interacting in the world than a state of nothingness. Perhaps it's simply a good study to try to contextualize these concepts, as well as to observe when one is investing more into the concept than it can actually hold, rather akin to overloading a boat beyond its capacity to float. This also accords with the Buddhist notion of not taking the raft with us when we have reached the other shore, but rather being willing to let go of the vehicle when it is no longer useful in that moment.


Slingerland, Edward (2014). Trying Not to Try.