Last time I talked about compromise to handle duality in reality. An improved way to contemplate this is Wu Wei.

Directly translated, Wu Wei (無為) means no action. But that completely loses the meaning, and it may lead people to think it is some sort of fatalism. Wu Wei is not no action, or not doing anything. A better English interpretation would be that Wu Wei is the way of non-striving.

The following questions are why it is very very relevant for our every day life. Ask yourself, are you struggling? Are you trying very very hard to become or achieve something? Do you feel that you deserve that something because you work very hard? And when you don’t get it, you feel sad and suffer?

This may sound mad and completely contrary to common sense that we are taught. My realization is that when we try so hard, try too hard, often we don’t get what we want. And if we do get what we want, we make a mess that require more effort to clean up than the effort we spent getting what we want.

Hence, I think it is important for us to realize Wu Wei. The way of non-striving. They always tell us to innovate and think outside the box, right? Well, here we go.

Wu Wei — the Way of Non-Striving. It is action without striving, without trying. It is more like natural action. Action that fits in the flow of situation, relevant to the objective reality, and support the many dualistic relationships we have.

Stop trying.

When you try, you don’t do. (you are not 100%)
When you stop trying, you simply do. (now you can be 100%)

Sound simple? It is. Is it easy? Not really. It requires much practice.

Whatever it is that you want to do, we continuously pay attention, learn, understand, practice, and repeat the process. At some point, after enough practice and repetition, you can let it go. Then you simply do.

Primarily, wu wei is recommended to be applied to living life… a life of awareness.

Some examples base on personal experience…

Like a pianist who needs to perform a piece, after much practicing, he knows exactly which keys he needs to hit and how exactly wants to hit it to convey his emotion. When he perform, he simply does it. However, if he has to think about it and tries to hit the key the way he wants, he will miss or play the note different than the original intention. Not only, he probably will lose his flow to finish the whole piece.

Same thing for a vocalist. The mere act of trying to hit a high note will disable his ability to do so because of the muscle tension that is generated from trying.

The same thing for basketball player. The talk about about play being “in a zone” or shooting “in rhythm”. Do you think the player is thinking how he wants to shoot the ball when he shoots the ball? Nope. He simply does it.

We always say we must be free. But the mere thought of that we must be free binds us to a concept which takes away the freedom.

We are always told that we must be happy. But the mere thought that we must be happy makes us try so hard to find happiness that we are not happy.

Our over zealous effort to control all things in life are nothing but self-defeating proposition. This “fighting” mentality is one such common sense that can be let go, if you sincerely want good things to happen.

One cannot ALWAYS be happy.
One cannot be perfect.
There is up and down.
People come and people go.

See things as they are and then simply react. Can you do that? Do you have doubt? Then you will keep striving.

There is nothing you can do about the problem because there is no problem. All the drama in life are all self-created. Yes, it is very real when you have created it. But can you not create it? Can you live without drama? Do you need to be excited, surprised, elevated all the time? Then it will be no end in sight. It will be a moving door.

There is not an end to strive for. That doesn’t mean you do nothing. That means whatever you do, with realization of Wu Wei, you WILL do your best… you are held back by no ideals nor desires. If you must conceptualize, it is doing for the sake of doing, for that moment of greatness. That is being in the flow. That is “playing in a zone”.

Without striving, you stop trying too hard.
You act when it is the time to act.
You don’t act when it is the time to not act.

How do you practice? For most of us… Slow down. Stop. Allow silence. Be Still. Breathe. Pay attention around you. Repeat. Thousand and thousand times.

Because of this realization, I am very wary to use terms such as “fight for”, “to defeat”, “to beat”… how we claim we need to “fight for peace”, or that “love and compassion can defeat suffering”. But there is nothing to beat. When you are aware, realize how all things are connected, you act without striving — Wu Wei. We will all simply love and be compassionate, and we simply do it because not just that it is good for us, but that things can be so much worse.

Let go of striving and you will also let go of suffering. You don’t try to let go. You simply let go. And by then, we no longer need to fight violence, no longer need to defeat suffering, no longer need to fight… we would “win” without a fight.

Additionally, in the act of fighting, attempting to defeat negativity, we validate the very negativity we want to defeat. We emphasize the negativity, and we make it an important thing in life. Is negativity what you want in your life? If not, then let go. Not saying they are not real. You decide for yourself if your pain, depression, problems are so important that you MUST fight to remove them. When you do that, are you not putting more emphasis on them instead, and with emphasis, are you not keeping them in your life?

The negativity may be very real it may take some time, but slowly, let it go bit by bit. Through practice, you simply let go. You act without striving.

But if you are a courageous soul, perhaps you just let go. That is also possible. In an instant, you would have realize Wu Wei. You ARE free. You no longer need to try to be free.

Practice, is simply living life with awareness. Observing yourself mentally and physically. Observing others around you. Observing events around you. Don’t try to see. Simply pay attention. As you learn to pay attention, the more and more you will come to see. Living in awareness becomes natural. And over time, life seems to be become easy, but keep in mind, making things easy is not the goal, the essense of Wu Wei.

If you can learn and live Wu Wei, I doubt your life will then be “that bad”.

You stop making a mess by trying too hard.
You act or not act without striving.
You simply are you.
You just be.

PS. This is kind of a sequel to The Agenda Mentality – Doing is Always a Mean to an End.

2 posts back I talked about importance to perceive duality in life. 3 posts back I said that life is all about relationships.

Life in the existing reality is a combination of countless relationships between dualistic elements. Therefore, solutions to problems in reality can only be a compromise within each relationship. UNLESS, you choose to destroy that relationship.

Knowing that, we should know to be cautious when we proclaim that we need to defeat this or we need to beat that to solve our problems in real life.

If you take away sadness, you will not be happy. (Therefore, it’s a futile battle against depression.)
If you try to control or take over someone else’s life, you are destroying your relationship with that person. (It will become one between owner and slave.)

All the duality in life…

Happiness and sadness.
Saving and spending.
Student and teacher.
Certainty and uncertainty.
Selfishness and selflessness.
Good and evil.

Our well being, along with nature’s well being, is when duality is kept in balance without one side overpowering the other. Therefore, an aware person’s solution to a “problem” is always one of compromise to bring balance back.

Remember, compromise.

The news about the New Zealand couple running away with several million had spread all over by now.

Interestly, there seems to be quite a bit of support for the runaway couple. There are even two Facebook groups created that support them – Go Leo Gao – Go You Good Thing! and We Support Leo Gao and his 10 Million Dollars – Run Leo Run.

The question I ask is not whether this is right or wrong or if you support is. The question I ask is…

If you had also gotten the money from the bank, would you choose to runaway?

For me, it is obvious that it is not worth it. First, there is the risk of getting caught. It is not likely that one can get away with something like this so easily. Secondly, even if I manage to get away at first, it will mean that I had to play hide and seek for, at least, an extended period of time if not my entire life, and that means I cannot even enjoy the money. Lastly, the instant money would not be something that I had earned myself and that simply takes away the entire enjoyment factor of earning it and thus no longer can I enjoy what I earn.

What about you?

Awhile back, I talked about how people often Mistake on Extremity. That topic is directly related to the existing duality in life and our ability to perceive them. Why is perceiving duality important? Because without such perception, how are we to make informed and optimal decision big and small? How else can we find a balance in our life?

People love to identify themselves with certain identity or idea and then become advocates, enthusiasts, or zealots. Nothing wrong with that. It only becomes a hindrance when we forget that identity and idea are merely identity and idea, which is creation of someone’s mind or of our own and that other identities and ideas exist outside of the realms.

More specifically, we love to identify the good and the bad in life, and we do whatever it takes to stick with the good and avoid the bad at all cost. As such, we overlook the opposites are never apart from each other. Opposites exist because of each other. We have forgotten this.

The degree of goodness is solely dependent on the degree of badness that exists. In the pursuit of the greatest happiness, we inevitably generate the greatest sadness. In the pursuit of greater excitement and thrill, we create even greater boredom.

Good does not exist without bad.

Just like for a hero, for one to continue to be a hero, he needs a villain, and to be a greater hero, a greater villain must be created. Without villain, there is no hero. That is how either a hero becomes a villain, or go crazy holding onto the title of hero when his villain dies, and thereby becomes a villain himself… and allowing someone else to become hero.

Therefore people shall be thankful for their opposites. Like most recently, the anti-abortionists protesting about Obama… They should be thankful for his and pro-abortionists’ existence, otherwise, they would not be so important, be able to perform “meaningful” actions, and perhaps be bored doing nothing. The opposite is also true.

The same can be said of something more mundane — being a parent. When does someone become a parent? When his or her child is born. However, as the child continues to grow, one day would no longer be JUST a child. But, often time, parents are not able to cease and let go of the role of being parents (especially Asians). You see, parent is just a role, a label, an identity. It is not you, not your entire being. Yes, perform the responsibilities of a parent, but you too shall grow out of such role, as the child has from being a child. When you holds on to being parent, you lose the self.

You are not just a parent now, are you? If you must act like and think like you are completey and only as a parent, aren’t you turning yourself into someone who is capable of no tasks outside of being a parents?

It’s the same when people hold on to any identity. Holding on to anything makes one lose the self. It is the desires for permanence for these labels and things that are and will never be permanent that causes pain. What’s the saying?

Desire and attachment are suffering. [only if we don't see them for what they are]

We don’t need to discard our current ways of life. We do not have to discard our identities. Otherwise, don’t we all need to become monks and nuns?

We can simply see that they are just ways of life and identities. Then we start to learn and begin to see more and more inside and outside of ourselves. From seeing, we will naturally behave differently. And if you must want a reason, you will change for the better.

We can still pursue happiness or whatever else, but perceiving duality means that we then know it is a mere pursuit, not everything, not our entire life. When we find awareness to see this, we find peace. We learn to be content. We see things as they are, which include both the good and bad. Because of that, we learn to flow with the way things work, enhancing our effectiveness, confidence, and decisiveness.

Therefore, the capability of letting go lies not in literally letting everything go but being aware that things are just what they are. Ideas are ideas. Feelings are feeling. Thoughts are thoughts. Good can mean bad. Bad can mean good. All such concepts are mere creations of someone else’s mind or of our own. If we are controlled by them, does not it mean we are controlled by our own minds?

Seeing is letting go.

It’s almost like a game. And it is. It is a game, though we live as if it is not, and we get lost because we have made things so complicated. It is a game, where many many dualities work opposingly, yet cooperatively. A symbiotic relationship.

Though, one may need some courage or so called “leap of faith” to accept this “absurd” idea that life is a game. Anyways.

Ironically, this is not a game to be beaten. Because how can someone beats life? If one beats life, wouldn’t it be death?

Instead, enough is for us to see that it is a game. When we know it is a game, we stop living as if we a struggling to live. When we stop struggling to live, we begin to live, and our perception improves (no longer held back by illusions). When we gain perception and awareness, we learn to see dualities. We then learn the rules and learn to live better. As we live better, we learn more and more and become more interested about life — this wonderful game. Then we simply keep learning and living, truly as a human being, and it is no longer because we need to beat it, or that we must survive — as we already know it is a game.

From perceiving duality (awareness), we find peace amidst chaos.
From finding peace, we flow calmly within the game.
From seeing it’s a game, we let go and simply play.
From letting go and playing, we become curious in the seemingly mundane.
From curiosity, we gain more and more awareness (perception of duality).

From all those, we lose our identities and grow the real Self.

A friend who is taking a philosophy class asked me this question. Here it is with my answer with minimal editing (shorthands, spellings, and such).

Do you believe, that much disclosure embarrasses the listener without providing a means to cope with the embarrassment? Relationships function best when moderate disclosure, not total disclosure, is offered. In other words, total relational intimacy may be an ideal, but it is not functional or realistic.

It says so in my book.

I think that only works in superficial relationships…

So what did you think about the disclosure thing? Do you think attraction lowers if there is too much uncovering of yourself?

Haha, you want a long answer or short answer? j/k, here is what I think as short as I can make it.

Life is all about relationships. And the key to relationship is honesty and sincerity. Now, that doesn’t mean a person spills everything all at once. Each and everything relationship takes time to develop but that should not limit the fact that you can still always be honestly expressing yourself.

Once again, the key to relationship is honesty and sincerity. To be able to be honest and sincere in all relationships, people must first have those qualities with themselves. That’s the biggest obstacle. Being completely honest with oneself sounds easy but not. I dare say, 99.99% of the people do not have that. What with each culture, religion, nation, advertisement, school, government, family, friends, neighbors, politicians, advocates, experts all telling us what we should be and should do, most of us don’t even know who we are but mere identities pieced together as one from all those sources. We THINK we are those things, and because we think we are JUST those things, we are limiting ourselves. Therefore, we get embarrassed.

As it is now, with most people not even knowing their true selves, henceforth all the dis-functional relationships there are. To have “realistic” relationship in current days means we have to be part of the game, which is fundamentally, the struggles of identities. Attraction lowers for most people because they think they are part of this game, consciously or unconsciously.

Real, genuine relationship (romantic or not) only begins when two people each had come to discover and know themselves, amidst this chaos. There is an old saying, “In life, if one has come to find one such person in life, he can die without regret.” (人生得一知己, 死而無憾)