taoist path

Wu Wei 无为 Action Through Non-Action

✍️Wendy Brown, Lic. Ac.

Do not burden yourself with depressing thoughts, do not get anxious about future events that may never happen, and do not dwell on things that are well in the past. All of these emotions dissipate the brightness of Shen (Heart Spirit). If we over-extend our Heart we will harm its Qi. If this happens, Jing (Kidney Essence) will also suffer damage, and the Shen, consequently, will lose its residence.

Doctrines of both Confucius and his student Mencius taught to refrain from striving, inflexibility, egotism, self-righteousness, expectation, and the use of force at any level. Even though both masters never said much about medicine, the art of nourishing the Spirit and Essence was understood. Wu Wei is a common truth in Taoist Chinese practices that can help to preserve this interdependent relationship between the Heart and the Kidney and show the path of Tao.

Dreaming of Butterflies. Yuan Dynasty.

An understanding of Eastern philosophy benefits us today as much as ever. The ‘causality’ approach to life is very often anathema to the timeless Tao (or Way) of the Universe. Countless scenarios play out before us that we become compelled to change. Do we engage in interactions through which we intend to prevent, prepare, or secure an outcome? Any force-of-will moves to create specified responses to our desires. Whatever must be asserted and managed is necessarily skewed to a particular perspective and liable to subsequent folly.

The wisdom of the Tao values balance, receptivity and emptiness. Many problems arise from re-acting, striving, and controlling.

Tao is eternally inactive,
and yet nothing is left undone

A Taoist pivot is active in cultivating awareness of the ways of the universe and one’s part herein. Cultivating a state of being that flows and responds with minimal action for our efforts reflects Wu Wei. This is not an expression of laziness or a lack of interest, but rather effortless efficiency. Guided by elemental rhythms of the natural world, as well as supernatural and alchemical influence, a classical Taoist finds an earthly pivot in Wu Wei. Letting all things play out, not engaged by will and ego, but keenly observant of an authentic progression of every moment, is Wu Wei. We are neither caring nor uncaring and yet Wu Wei does not imply overlooking those who are afflicted. Wu Wei may be considered an experience of one’s life path that is clear of rote emotional reactions, favoring a pivot where one acts rather than reacts, and one allows rather than resists changes. Our progress occurs naturally when we act in harmony and seek no progress at the expense of our genuine devotion to the ways of the Sage. Correcting our own thoughts, attitudes, and actions sets a course for whole-hearted improvement.

Action by non-action thereby allows evolution to take place instead of revolution and conditions that might further extremes.

The Taoist path of Wu Wei is neither difficult nor easy. By observing and simply ‘being’ we come to sense the natural and the supernatural and align with the way of Tao. Mirroring the universe we become whole. Our experiences and interests in the outside world become synergistic and complete. “Cherish the people and order the kingdom, and you can do without meddlesome action.” “If kings and nobles could but hold fast to this principle, all things would work.” Remember, these ideas are most valuable when they are absorbed slowly and applied loosely to everyday life. 

The Tao that Can Be Named

is Not The Eternal Tao

www.ElementalChanges.com Yin_Yang

Posted by Wendy in analytical

Modern-Day Hermits

wendy brown, lic.ac. acupuncture, asheville nc

Original Article Tom Hancock Found At: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Life/Living/2014/Dec-17/281307-chinas-hermits-seek-a-highway-to-heaven.ashx#sthash.jgb5v3Ug.dpuf

His unheated hut is halfway up a mountain with no electricity, and his diet consists mostly of cabbage. But Master Hou says he has found a recipe for joy. “There is no happier way for a person to live on this earth,” he declared, balancing on a hard wooden stool outside his primitive mud brick dwelling. Hundreds of millions have moved to China’s urban areas during a decades-long economic boom, but some are turning their backs on the bright lights and big cities to live as isolated hermits.

Their choice puts them in touch with an ancient tradition undergoing a surprising modern-day revival. Hundreds of small huts dot the jagged peaks of the remote Zhongnan mountains in central China, where followers of Buddhism and local Taoist traditions have for centuries sought to live far from the madding crowds. “The Zhongnan mountains have a special aura,” said Hou, who moved to the hills almost a decade ago and wrapped himself in a long black robe, smiling as the wind rustled the surrounding woods.

Hou grew up in the bustling coastal city of Zhuhai, next to the gambling mecca of Macau, but now his days consist almost entirely of meditation, with pauses to chop firewood and vegetables. “Cities are places of restless life. Here is where you can find inner joy,” he said. “Now I’m happy to be alone.” Winter temperatures can drop below minus 20 degrees Celsius and deadly snakes lurk under rocks, but the mountaintops are growing increasingly crowded amid rising dissatisfaction with materialism.

Hou – looks in his 40s but says Taoists do not reveal their age – was recently joined by two apprentices. Wang Gaofeng, 26, has a wispier beard than his master, and said he had quit a management-level job in China’s vast railway system a year ago. “Watching TV and playing video games are just temporary excitement, like opium. That kind of pleasure is quickly gone,” he said, chomping on some freshly boiled cabbage. It is a radically individualistic contrast to the collectivist mantras of past decades. But today’s hermits are following a well-beaten historical path, and experts say quiet types have preferred to live alone in the mountains of China for more than 3,000 years.

Taoism – loosely based on the writings of an immortal figure named Lao T’zu who lived some 2,500 years ago – calls for an adherence to “The Way” (Tao), which practitioners have long interpreted as a return to the natural world. Unlike their Western equivalents, religiously inspired outsiders who often shunned society completely, China’s mountain dwellers have historically been sought out by politicians. “Hermits played a political role, they pushed society forward and maintained ancient ideas,” said Zhang Jianfeng, part-time mountain dweller and founder of a Taoism magazine. But the officially atheist Communist Party came to power in 1949, cutting their political connections. Anti-religious campaigns reached their fever pitch during the decade of upheaval beginning in 1966 known as the Cultural Revolution, when many of the temples and shrines in the Zhongnan mountains were destroyed and their inhabitants dispersed. Nonetheless experts estimate several hundred hermits survived the period unscathed deep in the hills, with some even said to be unaware the Communists had taken power.

Their numbers have risen since the government relaxed religious controls in the 1980s. “Twenty years ago, there were just a few hundred people living in the Zhongnan mountains. But in the last few years, the number has increased very quickly,” Zhang said. “Now, perhaps, there are too many people blindly moving to the mountains,” he added. “There are incidents every year, people eating poisonous mushrooms, or freezing to death … some people lack common sense.”

Much of the hermit revival can be attributed to U.S. writer Bill Porter, who in the 1993 published the first book about the mountain dwellers. It was a commercial failure in the U.S., leaving Porter living on government food stamps. But its 2006 Chinese translation became a hit, selling more than 100,000 copies. “In the 1980s no one paid the hermits any attention, because everyone had a chance to make a buck and improve their lives materially,” said the shaggy-bearded author. “People thought it absurd to go in the opposite direction.” Now he notes more well-educated former professionals among the denizens of what he calls “hermit heaven,” and one who did not want to be identified told AFP he was a government official on sabbatical. “You get a much wider mix, people who are jaded or disillusioned in the current economy and are seeking something more,” Porter said.

China’s decades of breakneck economic growth have created a substantial middle class, but a few of them now openly question materialist values. Around a dozen young people from across the country live in a clump of wooden huts which acts as a testing ground for aspiring hermits, albeit outfitted with electricity and a DVD player. Liu Jingchong, 38, moved in after quitting a lucrative job in the southern city of Guangzhou this year, and plans to live completely alone. “I felt life was an endless circle: finding a better car, better job, a better girlfriend, but not going anywhere,” he said, sitting cross-legged on a cushion. “When I’m alone on the mountain, I will just need shelter, a pot, and seeds from the pine trees.”

More than half the modern-day hermits are said to be women, and Li Yunqi, 26, spent several weeks at the cottages. “I like the life of a hermit, living on a mountain. I came here for inner peace and to escape the noise of the city,” she said, wearing a puffy pink coat and fiddling with a smartphone as an off-road vehicle carried her down a muddy path to civilization.

 

Mt. Zhongnan Hermitage Photograph by Bao Xun

Mt. Zhongnan Hermitage Photograph by Bao X

Hermitage in the Zhongnan Mountains

Hermitage in the Zhongnan Mountains

Posted by Wendy in analytical
Poetry of Protracted Illness

Poetry of Protracted Illness

Visit from a Friend  Po Chu’i [772-846 CE]

I have been ill so long that I do not count the days; at the Southern window, evening – and again evening. Sadly chirping in the grasses under my eaves, the winter sparrows morning and evening sing. By an effort I rise and lean heavily on my bed; tottering I step toward the door of the courtyard. By chance I meet a friend who is coming to see me; just as if I had gone specially to meet him. They took my couch and placed it in the setting sun; they spread my rug and I leaned on the balcony-pillar. Tranquil talk was better than any medicine; gradually the feelings came back to my numbed heart.

Translation · Arthur Waley · 170 Chinese Poems

www.ElementalChanges.com Protracted Illness

 

 

Posted by Wendy in analytical