Trying Not to Try summary

So, wu-wei unites your whole being, but people who are in this state also have de, a concept that refers to power, virtue and charisma. De transports one into a perfectly spontaneous mind-set.

For a ruler, de is a source of power and influence. When leaders reach this state, they no longer need to threaten anyone because people are compelled to obey them. If you’re an average person, having de will make people like you, feel attracted to you and even stop wild animals from threatening or attacking you.

So, Taoism offered one concept of attaining wu-wei, but not every Chinese thinker got on board with it. The philosopher Confucius developed another strategy for becoming a perfect human being.

His school of thought, known as Confucianism, sought to diminish the natural aspect of our being, transforming it through education and effort in the service of attaining wu-wei. Confucius and his successor Xunzi believed that to reach wu-wei you need to work on your conscious mind. In other words, you had to improve your willpower, behavior and knowledge of the cultures that came before yours.

If Confucius thought the path to heaven was paved with proper social conduct, Laozi, the great thinker and founder of Taoism, originally thought just the opposite in the sixth century BCE. He believed that the best way to reach heaven was to forget what society had taught you and return to human nature.

In other words, he thought the Way of Heaven was to stop trying to be a specific way, to forget all you’d learned and connect with a raw version of yourself. To put it more poetically, Laozi wanted people to think more with their bellies and less with their eyes.

If Confucius and Laozi feel too extreme for you, you might be interested in the philosopher Mencius, whose thinking fell somewhere in between. His belief was that you don’t need to change anything since you’re already wu-wei. The only task is to realize this fact and nourish it.

So, instead of spontaneously discovering wu-wei, you find it under the guidance of a wise teacher who helps you until your wu-wei is strong enough to take over. Such a teacher would show you how to find a virtue you already have, focus on it, strengthen it, and expand it through a mixture of introspection, practice and imaginative extension.

So, there are a few different schools of thought when it comes to attaining wu-wei, all of which urge followers to reach a state of complete spontaneity and unselfconsciousness. However, that’s easier said than done. The problem is honesty.

You can’t achieve wu-wei if you’re not sincere, both with yourself and with others. After all, if you don’t truly love The Way, there won’t be a powerful emotion propelling your practice. As a result, you won’t find the flow you’re looking for.