“And all I gotta do is act naturally” — from Buck Owens’ song, Act Naturally (although he did not write it)

On an existential level, when we recognize the extent to which our lives are molded by social constructs, we become able to free ourselves from a type of emotional entanglement that disturbs our tranquility. The social ambitions that motivate us—money, wealth, power, privilege—lose their grip, become less influential. Other possibilities for a flourishing life may emerge, not determined by manipulative actions and its attendant desires. With the diminishing of the hold of desires and conceptual constructs, one’s mode of engagement with the world will be more accommodating, allowing events to happen without attachment to outcome. Thus the loosening of artifice goes hand in hand with the cultivation of a sort of indifference toward worldly success and failure. — Steve Coutinho

Some people are only funny when they try to be serious. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nothing makes it so difficult to be natural as the desire to be so. — La Rochefoucauld

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My late dear brother, Brian, once took an undergraduate course on Zen Buddhism that affected him deeply, although perhaps not in the way one might expect (he did not become very interested in either Buddhism in general or even Zen in particular). What he took away from the class—as we might say—was the importance of living spontaneously, or “in the moment,” not unlike what Ram Dass famously implored his readers: “be here now,” which is perhaps more about being scrupulously aware or attentive than about trying, as it were, to live in the moment (I’m inclined to label this admonition, like ‘willing what cannot be willed,’ a pragmatic contradiction). I vividly recall his happy announcement to me (in more or less these words): “From now on I am going to act spontaneously,” which upon hearing I laughed heartily, although I did not have the heart to explain to him that that made no sense, for one cannot will spontaneous behavior (yet my dear brother’s desire had noble precedent, for as Elster reminds us, Stendhal’s diary reveals almost identical obsession with ‘becoming natural’).

Indeed. This is an illustration of that mental fallacy Jon Elster, after the late psychologist Leslie Farber, termed “willing what cannot be willed” (that is, in reference to those mental state or states of affairs in the world—like spontaneity or sleep—that cannot be the direct product of willing but are rather the—indirect—outcome or by-product effect of other mental states or actions).¹ And yet, in Daoism, for example, we learn that one can engage in an “intentional project” to “be natural,” which in this case is characterized as wu-wei (lit., non-action). Livia Kohn’s entry on this concept from The Encyclopedia of Taoism provides us with a succinct formulation: “Wuwei or ‘non-action’ means to do things the natural way, by not interfering with the patterns, rhythms and structure of nature, without imposing one’s own intentions upon the world.”² The “natural way” is not meant here in the sense of how most of us, most of the time, “naturally” behave or act (which may be a function of habit, mindlessness or inattentiveness) but has a more specific or technical meaning depending on the way in which the natural world is said to be intrinsically in harmony with or expressive of (in an immanent sense) of the Dao. Thus wu-wei is not, literally, non-action but refers instead to a qualitatively distinct and uncommon kind of action, what the late Huston Smith called “creative quietude,” meaning one acts with a still or clear (‘unmuddied’) mind in a manner that embodies or incarnates or exemplifies the Dao. Such action is characterized by a freedom and spontaneity (ziran) that arise from a heart-mind experiencing, it seems, an ecstatic or blissful oneness (or simply a kind of contentedness) with “all-there-is.” It is the characteristic and conspicuous action of the sage (shengren) and the ideal ruler in the political realm and is, arguably, a direct product of ascetic praxis and mystical states of consciousness. In short, wu-wei is acting with a meditative heart-mind (like a polished mirror, to use a prominent metaphor) in harmony with the natural world and tian while instantiating the Dao.

Ascetic self-discipline or “spiritual exercises,” training in the arts, and meditative praxis are necessary yet not sufficient conditions for wu-wei. In other words, while it is true that “making every effort,” “striving,” “working hard” or even “willing” are, in one important sense, truly the antithesis of wu-wei, arduous striving, self-discipline and training the mind are no less integral to the eventual accomplishment of wu-wei! The “acting naturally” that is wu-wei, therefore, does not come naturally to us, hence we are instructed, by way of an “intentional project,” to “return to the uncarved block,” dampen the passions and still the mind, all by way of attaining a “second” nature in Joel Kupperman’s sense,³ as this requires forms of self-discipline and self-knowledge that are arduous, that involve ascetic or ascetic-like training of the body and the heart-mind (i.e., reason and the emotions). Thus for human beings to act “naturally” in the Daoist sense entails acquiring a “second” nature that is attained indirectly, as a by-product of mental and behavioral dispositions, or mental states and actions that are not “willful,” as when, say, we set out to satisfy our first order desires or instrumentally achieve our ends. The intentional project is fulfilled over an unspecified period of time during which we are engaged in the sorts of practices the Daoist recommends (or hints at) that are necessary but not necessarily sufficient conditions for “acting naturally,” to wu-wei. Only then are we capable of acting in a timely fashion with the consummate skill, grace and spontaneity befitting alike the exigencies of daily situations and unique circumstance, and this in a manner indicative of our ability to “be,” so to speak, one with Dao. In sum, acting naturally in the Daoist sense means cultivating what for us does not come naturally, and thus self-cultivation brings about, so to speak, a second nature, a nature in accord with the natural world, one in which a person has acquired the capability to act spontaneously and effortlessly, a state in which one’s personal judgment coheres with the exigencies of a situation, be these practical, moral, spiritual (perhaps a combination thereof) what have you.

Notes

1. See Elster’s Sour Grapes: studies in the subversion of rationality (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983): 43-66.
2. Livia Kohn, “wuwei,” Fabrizio Pregadio, ed., The Encyclopedia of Taoism, vol. II (New York: Routledge, 2008): 1067. Notice the definition refers to not imposing one’s intentions on the world, suggesting the possibility that an “intentional project” in the extended temporal sense outlined by Fraser in his review of Slingerland’s Effortless Action (2003), to wit: “If acquisition of an effortless state is understood synchronically, this is indeed paradoxical: one cannot be effortless while simultaneously exerting effort. But as long as the process of achieving the effortless state is understood diachronically, no paradox arises. We can and frequently do acquire the ability to act effortlessly, as when we master skills or regain a physical ability through rehabilitation after injury. Acquisition begins with deliberate exertion, but eventually we internalize the skill and develop the ability to act automatically and sometimes effortlessly.” And yet, a paradox perhaps remains: “On the other hand, if we take wu-wei to refer to the absence of intentional action, as I suggest, then the conceptual structure of intentionality may indeed render the directive to achieve wu-wei paradoxical, even construed diachronically. To cite just one of several potential paradoxes, on some accounts of intentionality, an agent cannot intentionally cause herself to perform actions that are wholly non-intentional, because intentions (unlike effort) remain in effect over time, even when not consciously held in mind, and their scope covers all the subsidiary actions that contribute to their fulfillment. For example, this morning I set to work on this review spontaneously, without consciously forming an intention to do so. Nevertheless, my activity was intentional, because it is part of a project I am performing intentionally. At some level of description, any voluntary movement an agent performs is intentional, merely by virtue of being an action rather than a reflex.” For our purposes, what is important is the possibility that the original intentional project is capable of becoming “subconscious” or even “unconscious” in Elster’s sense, meaning one attains a state of “relating directly to the world without relating also to the relating,” which he proceeds to characterize as an exquisite piece of moral psychology, “an argument to the effect that the good things in life are spoiled by self-consciousness about them.”
3. See Joel Kupperman, Learning from Asian Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

References and Further Reading

• Ames, Roger T., ed. Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998.
• Ames, Roger T. and David L. Hall. Dao De Jing, “Making This Life Significant:” A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.
• Cook, Scott, ed. Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourse on the Zhuangzi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003.
• Coutinho, Steve. An Introduction to Daoist Philosophies. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
• Csikszentmihalyi, Mark and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds. Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1999.
• Elster, Jon. Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
• Forman, Robert K.C. The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• Fraser, Chris. “On Wu-wei as a Unifying Metaphor,” Philosophy East and West, Vol. 57, No. 1 (January 2007): 97-106.
• Ivanhoe, Philip J., trans. (with commentary). The Daodejing of Laozi. New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2002.
• Kirkland, Russell. Taoism: The Enduring Tradition. New York: Routledge, 2004.
• Kjellberg, Paul, and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds. Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996.
• Kohn, Livia. Early Chinese Mysticism: Philosophy and Soteriology in the Taoist Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
• Kohn, Livia. Monastic Life in Medieval Taoism: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003.
• Kohn, Livia. Cosmos and Community: The Ethical Dimension of Daoism. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2004.
• Kohn, Livia, ed. The Taoist Experience: An Anthology. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993.
• Kohn, Livia, ed. Daoism Handbook. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
• Kupperman, Joel J. Learning from Asian Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 
• LaFargue, Michael. The Tao of the Tao Te Ching: A Translation and Commentary. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992.
• Little, Stephen (with Shawn Eichman). Taoism and the Arts of China. Chicago, IL and Berkeley, CA: The Art Institute of Chicago with the University of California Press, 2000.
• Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism, 2 Vols. New York: Routledge, 2008.
• Rosemont, Henry, Jr. Rationality and Religious Experience: The Continuing Relevance of the World’s Spiritual Traditions. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2001.
• Slingerland, Edward. Effortless Action: Wu-Wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Stanley, Jason and Timothy Williamson. “Knowing How,” Journal of Philosophy, 98.8 (2001): 1-40.