Tao: The Watercourse Way
The essential teaching of wu-wei can only be known if the individual is sincere in surrendering control and, as a result, giving his life over to something much bigger than himself
pg 17 Effortless living
Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen are expressions of a mentality which feels completely at home in this universe, and which sees man as an integral part of his environment. Human intelligence is not an imprisoned spirit from afar but an aspect of the whole intricately balanced organism of the natural world, whose principles were first explored in the B
... See moreAlan W. Watts • The Way of Zen
everything in the universe is integral and symbiotic in nature, and that everything functions harmoniously according to the rhythm of the universe. So, he asks, why would humanity be the exception? The Way of the Tao and our experience of it comes from allowing all aspects of the universe to happen as they will without conscious interference.
Jason Gregory • Effortless Living: Wu-Wei and the Spontaneous State of Natural Harmony
Taoism has been described as “the art of being in the world,” and the main thrust of its teaching was opposed to the Confucian ideas of social order. Instead, it stressed that the individual should seek to flow with the watercourse way, the Tao. Lao-tzu described this mystical concept, which like Zen defies objective analysis, in the following way: