Cyclone Dreaming 9 – Wu-Wei

Wu-Wei
The explicit reliance on intuitive knowledge as a source of wisdom is deeply embedded in Chinese culture. Its schools of philosophy are each in their own way concerned with life in society, human relations, moral values and government. The organisation of society the education of the young in particular ‑ reflects the strict conventions and etiquette of Confucianism. Yet the highest aim of Chinese philosophy is to reach beyond the things and events of the world and everyday life to a mystical union with the Universe. On this point, China ‑ practical, pragmatic and socially conscious ‑ is at one with India – imaginative, metaphysical and transcendental. But whereas Indian thought personifies the one underlying reality as Brahman, it is conceived in China as the impersonal process of the cosmos which manifests itself in observable patterns of life that nevertheless change spontaneously. It is known as the Tao or The Way. Human endeavour is not always consistent with The Way. Social organisation in particular resists spontaneity. Taoism therefore exists as a means of liberation from the world as it is made by strict rules and convention. Mistrust of conventional knowledge and reasoning is stronger in Taoism than in any other school of eastern philosophy.

Trusting our intuition, according to Taoism, enables us to observe and conform with the movements of the Tao. Such a disposition is called WU‑ WEI.
(Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics)