Taoism- Actionless action

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Mr-Natural
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Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Mr-Natural »

Hi

The concept of 'actionless action' in Taoism is probably the most slippery and illusive of all Taoist or even Eastern concepts for westerners to grasp, and yet it seems pretty vital to the Taoist 'way'.

Of course, much of the Tao Te Ching (and the book of Chuan Tzu for the matter) is purposely allusive and poetic, forcing us to use our minds to imagine and work around the cryptic utterances.

So how directly do we interpret 'actionless action', and how important do you guys think it is to Taoism generally? It may be simply going with the spontaneous flow of nature, or it may reach for something more paradoxical and complex.
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Spiral Out
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Spiral Out »

It's unfortunate that I missed this topic as I'm greatly interested in Taoism. I have a few different translations of the Tao Te Ching, of which the 1972 translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English is the most compelling, among other Taoist writings.

This "actionless action" is better translated as "perfect action" which means to act only through necessity and using no extraneous movements or expenditure of energy. It is basically the concept of efficiency of action according to nature and in harmony with nature's requirements. No more, no less. This Taoist belief is based on the concept that action is that which Humans do based on desires, not on the simple necessity of the "formless substance".

All things in the Tao Te Ching are based on apparent opposites; of paradoxical and contrary ideas.

"Tao abides in non-action. Yet nothing is left undone."

"That without substance can enter where there is no room. Hence I know the value of non-action."

Verse 48 of the Tao Te Ching:

"In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering."


Yield and overcome.
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Newme
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Newme »

Spiral Out wrote:It's unfortunate that I missed this topic as I'm greatly interested in Taoism. I have a few different translations of the Tao Te Ching, of which the 1972 translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English is the most compelling, among other Taoist writings.

This "actionless action" is better translated as "perfect action" which means to act only through necessity and using no extraneous movements or expenditure of energy. It is basically the concept of efficiency of action according to nature and in harmony with nature's requirements. No more, no less. This Taoist belief is based on the concept that action is that which Humans do based on desires, not on the simple necessity of the "formless substance".

All things in the Tao Te Ching are based on apparent opposites; of paradoxical and contrary ideas.

"Tao abides in non-action. Yet nothing is left undone."

"That without substance can enter where there is no room. Hence I know the value of non-action."

Verse 48 of the Tao Te Ching:

"In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering."


Yield and overcome.
SpiralOut,

I'm impressed with your insightful interpretation. It makes sense to consciously act in ways that are efficient, budgeting time, energy & resources. Any more thoughts on Taoism - or is this an interest of the past?
“Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering.” - Epicurus
Fooloso4
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Fooloso4 »

Translating the Daoist term wu-wei (non-action) poses several problems one of which is that it is used somewhat differently in different Daoist texts, notably in Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi. Another is that it is not a matter of understanding through conceptual clarification, but rather of existential practice. A third is its relationship to the virtue of tenuousness. Precisely defined concepts describing how one is to act is contrary to this.
Newme:

It makes sense to consciously act in ways that are efficient, budgeting time, energy & resources.
Efficiency of action, as the term is being used, is not the result of efficiency plans but of doing what is natural. Such terminology has its use but can become the source of confusion and irresolvable argument. On this Laozi and Zhuangzi are in agreement, but for Zhuangzi wu-wei, natural, unforced, unselfconscious action, requires mastery, which is the result of deliberate training and effort. Think, for example, of the musical master who plays without effort.
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Spiral Out
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Spiral Out »

Newme,

Thanks for your compliment. I particularly enjoy chapter eleven of the Tao Te Ching.

Eleven

Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there
Usefulness from what is not there.


Being a Scorpio, I find both the sexual and spiritual aspects of this thought most intriguing.

Excerpted from chapter sixty-one:

"The female overcomes the male with stillness,
Lying low in stillness."


I also enjoy the following excerpted thought from chapter fifty:

He who knows how to live can walk abroad
Without fear of rhinoceros or tiger.
He will not be wounded in battle.
For in him rhinoceroses can find no place to thrust their horn,
Tigers no place to use their claws,
And weapons no place to pierce.
Why is this so?
Because he has no place for death to enter.


I also find quite interesting the Tao's references to water as its most significant example of the essence of existence.

In chapter eight, it is explained:

"The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao."


Chapter seventy-eight:

"Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better
It has no equal.
The weak can overcome the strong
The supple can overcome the stiff.
Under heaven everyone knows this,
Yet no one puts it into practice.
Therefore the sage says:
He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people is fit to rule them.
He who takes upon himself the country's disasters deserves to be king of the universe.
The truth often sounds paradoxical."


From chapter forty-three:

"The softest thing in the universe
Overcomes the hardest thing in the universe.
That without substance can enter where there is no room.
Hence I know the value of non-action."


The final chapter begins with "Truthful words are not beautiful. Beautiful words are not truthful." which appears to acknowledge the absurd nature of our existence in the universe. We want the beautiful to be the truth.
Dedicated to the fine art of thinking.
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Misty »

Spiral Out,

Tao - "movement overcomes cold, stillness overcomes heat" - weird, but I can see your Void in Tao!
Things are not always as they appear; it's a matter of perception.

The eyes can only see what the mind has, is, or will be prepared to comprehend.

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Spiral Out
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Spiral Out »

Chapter 25 refers to one concept of the Void.
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Fooloso4
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Fooloso4 »

Spiral:

The final chapter begins with "Truthful words are not beautiful. Beautiful words are not truthful." which appears to acknowledge the absurd nature of our existence in the universe. We want the beautiful to be the truth.
Before addressing this it is necessary to say a few words about translation. One must consider what it is that one wants in a translation. Each translation has its advocates. What might lead me to prefer one translation or approach to translation might be the very thing that leads someone else to reject it. We must rely on the skill and knowledge of translator. In my opinion the most capable translators are those who are well versed in the linguistic and philosophical tradition of both that period of the work to be translated as well as that of contemporary Western philosophy. While style and accessibility are important they should not be achieved at the expense of meaning.

By way of comparison here is Philip Ivanhoe’s translation of these lines:
Words worthy of trust are not refined;

Refined words are not worth of trust.
There is a connection with the following from chapter 32:
When unhewn wood is carved up, then there are names.

Now that there are names, know enough to stop!
Gia-Fu Feng translates this as follows:
Once the whole is divided, the parts need names.

There are already enough names.

We need to know when to stop.
There is some overlap in the meaning of the terms refined and beautiful but with regard to the beautiful chapter 2 says:
Everyone in the world knows that when the beautiful strives to be beautiful, it is repulsive.
Gia-Fu Feng translates:
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
The Ivanhoe translation shows the connection in each of these passages with wu-wei. It is not a matter of the absurd nature of our existence but of our misguided effects resulting in the opposite of what we strive for. Naming is dividing; we do not first divide and then name what we have divided. This needs to be understood in context. It is in response to the problems raised by the Chinese “School of Naming”, which leads to all kinds of mischief and confusion such as the famous problem of a white horse not being a horse. The problem of the connection between the true and the beautiful is quintessentially Greek. Trustworthy words are simple. The beautiful is unadorned. This is a warning against making unnecessary distinctions and additions.
Misty:

Tao - "movement overcomes cold, stillness overcomes heat" - weird, but I can see your Void in Tao!
The Daodejing is not about metaphysical claims but is rooted in observations of life. We move in order to keep warm and stay still when we are too warm.
To know that one does not know is best;

Not to know but to believe that one knows is a disease.

Only by seeing this disease as a disease can one be free of it. (Chapter 71)
Spiral:

Chapter 25 refers to one concept of the Void.
A questionable reading. I would be interested in your commentary to support this claim. Any reference in the Daodejing to such concepts serves as a warning to put no stock in them.
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Spiral Out
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Spiral Out »

Fooloso4,

Find in the Tao whatever fulfills you. It is not intended to be either "right or wrong".

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."

The Tao cannot be explained any more than can the Void.

I might suggest you read some Taoist selections from Deng Ming-Dao such as The Chronicles of Tao about the life of Taoist master Kwan Saihung, or Scholar Warrior which is an outline of Taoist practices. Very good books.
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Fooloso4
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Fooloso4 »

Spiral:

Find in the Tao whatever fulfills you. It is not intended to be either "right or wrong".
Clearly the authors thought they had something of value to teach. What they meant is not always clear and there are plausible interpretations that differ, but if the intent (which you claim to rightly know despite your claim that the Tao is not intended to be either right or wrong) is for readers to find whatever in some unspecified way “fulfills” them then the text itself along with the teaching of the sage become irrelevant.
Those who are crooked will be perfected.

Those who are bent will be straight …

This is why sages embrace the One and serve as models for the whole of the world. (Chapter 22)
If one reads:
Attain extreme tenuousness (chapter 16)
and finds fulfillment in thinking this means develop a problematic philosophical theory about the Void and insist that it is right no matter what, then this is simply wrong and contrary to what is said.
Spiral:

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."
The text points to its own limits. The Tao and the text are not the same. As the title indicates its subject is both the Way (dao) and Virtue (de). The cultivation of virtue is not a matter of whatever fulfills you. There are clearly appropriate and inappropriate attitudes and actions that are discussed. Without virtue there are things that one might find fulfilling but are at odds with the Way.

You seem to have failed to notice that chapter 25 should serve as a corrective to your notion of subjectivity:
There is a thing confused yet perfect, which arose before Heaven and earth.
Call it what you will but it is not nothing and even though we could not call it anything without subjectivity, it was and is prior to subjectivity. It is not dependent on whatever name we give it. The text is fundamentally anti-subjective. Consider, for example what is said in chapter 22 and elsewhere regarding the One.

It seems to me the appropriate attitude is one in which we read not just this text but any text carefully and closely and discuss what we think it means, providing textual support for our interpretations. It should be a cooperative rather than competitive venture even though we may present and defend competing ideas. Claiming that chapter 25 refers to the Void to then refusing to support this textually but instead claim that it refers to whatever fulfills you and that neither the Tao nor the Void can be explained is evasive and disingenuous.
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Present awareness
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

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My understanding of actionless action, is a reference to a frame of mind, which is ankored firmly in the present moment, and responds to each occasion, as the occasion arises. If you were to observe such a person, you might even say that they appear to do each thing, as if they do nothing else. This state of mind is often called no- mind, because not being focused on any one thing, the mind is free to focus on anything.
Even though you can see me, I might not be here.
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Spiral Out
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Spiral Out »

Fooloso4 wrote:Clearly the authors thought they had something of value to teach. What they meant is not always clear and there are plausible interpretations that differ, but if the intent (which you claim to rightly know despite your claim that the Tao is not intended to be either right or wrong) is for readers to find whatever in some unspecified way “fulfills” them then the text itself along with the teaching of the sage become irrelevant.
Now you're starting to get it.
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Fooloso4
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Fooloso4 »

Spiral:

Now you're starting to get it.
That’s good because having taught university courses in Chinese philosophy for a number of years it is nice to know I am finally starting to get it.

This does raise some troubling questions for scholars and translators who have spent their lives working on what you have decided is an irrelevant text. Perhaps their time would be better spent making spurious claims about the text rather than attending to it. Certainly this would involve less effect, and why make the effort to understand an irrelevant text?

One must wonder though what it means for you to say that you find a particular translation of the text the most compelling. If the text is irrelevant than so is the difference between one translation and the next, as is the difference between a translation of the text and any combination of sounds you might find compelling. One might also wonder why you are “greatly interested” in such irrelevance.

This may be at odds with your notion of efficient action but perhaps you could make a small effort and try to see that if I am correct in saying the authors thought they had something of value to teach then they would not have thought their teachings irrelevant. It seems, however, that it is only irrelevant when it comes to your having to defend the claims you make about it. If, as you claim, it refers to the Void is this too irrelevant? Or do you assume that your claims about the Void are relevant and serve as a corrective to this irrelevant work that has been of central importance for centuries?

Like many other important and relevant texts this one allows us to reflect on ourselves and thus advance our practice of self-transformation. But as long as one does not or cannot look in the direction it points it will remain irrelevant. If you can understand this then you too might begin to get it.
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Atreyu »

I'm glad this post was started, because it corroborates what I said in the Void thread. To me, the idea of the Void and the Tao are very similar, almost so similar that perhaps they could be referring to the exact same thing. Both are terms to signify that which cannot really be verbalized, but which actually exists, and is perhaps more "real" and "fundamental" to reality than that which we can verbalize or name.

The only difference in the two terms appears to be that they highlight different "features" of this Nameless thing. In the "Tao" the emphasis is on the fact that it is Something, just something that we cannot verbalize or understand using ordinary cognition. In the "Void" the emphasis is on the fact that it is Nothing, that is, it is so different than anything we know that it might be viewed as a sort of absolute Emptiness.

The Tao is like the Void. Both are somehow "something" and yet "nothing" at the same time. And this corroborates with the ancient mantra that "Everything is Nothing, and Nothing is Everything". It is just as accurate to view the Universe as being an agglomeration of Everything as it is to view it as absolute Nothingness, although our dualistic minds will, of course, beg to differ.....
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Spiral Out
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Spiral Out »

Spiral Out wrote:Now you're starting to get it.
Fooloso4 wrote:That’s good because having taught university courses in Chinese philosophy for a number of years it is nice to know I am finally starting to get it.
Perhaps I spoke too soon. It also appears that you are the ultimate authority on this topic, so then what is there to discuss?

Of course, if you read my words you'll note that I didn't say the text is "irrelevant", that was your own emotional reaction to my words. I do wonder however, having referred to this "relevance" no less than eleven times in your reaction, what it is supposedly "irrelevant" to.
Fooloso4 wrote:You seem to have failed to notice that chapter 25 should serve as a corrective to your notion of subjectivity:
You've apparently failed to read the "Notes to Translation" in Philip Ivanhoe's version of the text.

Either way, if you genuinely understood the fundamental principle of Tao then you'd not be quibbling that how the text has assisted me in my own life is somehow "incorrect".

You do not understand the underlying principle of Tao, you only appear to care about the manifestations of the idea.
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