Love and the Middle Way

written by Stuart Wilde, November 27th 2012

My ol’ teacher was a Taoist, he taught of the old sages in China and their wisdom and their gentle ways. There is a concept in Taoism called wu wei – non action. Here’s what Wiki’ says about it:

“Wu wei is an important concept in Taoism that literally means non-action or non-doing. In the Tao te Ching, Laozi eplains that beings (or phenomena) that are wholly in harmony with the Tao behave in a completely natural, uncontrived way. As the planets revolve around the sun, they “do” this revolving, but without “doing” it. As tress grow, they simply grow without trying to grow.  Thus knowing how and when to act is not knowledge in the sense that one would think, “now I should do this.” but rather just doing it, doing the natural thing, is the way. The goal of spiritual practice to the human being is, according to Laozi, the attainment of this natural way of behaving.” Wikipedia.

SW: Aligning to nature and its softness is the middle way. It involves no struggle, or confrontation, you can act coherently in life, but you do not need to force your way along, as the emotion of that often pushes things away from you. It’s like the Zen philosophy, it’s a solid calm, it’s the way of love and the path of least resistance. The Tao is full of love because it respects animals and nature, and other humans, also in the calm of the middle way you can communicate more clearly with yourself, aware of your feelings and intuition.