Wei-wu-wei: Nondual action
by David Lay
philosophy east and west
vol. 35, no. 1(January
1985)
P73-87
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... at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it
fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement
from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point,
the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the
dance.
T. S. Eliot(1)
Wei-wu-wei, "the action of nonaction, " is the
central paradox of Taoism and as a concept is second
in importance only to the Tao itself, which
incorporates it; Lao Tzu describes the
action/nonaction of someone who has realized the Tao
as wu-wei:
....Thus, the wise man deals with things through
wu-wei and teaches through no-words.
The ten thousand things flourish without
interruption.
They grow by themselves, and no one possesses them.
(Chapter 2)(2)
The highest attainment is wu-wei and is purposeless
(wei).
(Chapter 38)
When wu-wei is done, nothing is left undone.
(Chapter 48)
The other paradoxes of Taoism would seem to be
derived from wu-wei, unless it is a coincidence that
they are susceptible to expression in the same form:
"the morality of no morality," "the knowledge of no
knowledge," and so forth. As a paradox, wei-wu-wei
is perhaps even more difficult to understand than
the unconceptualizable Tao itself. In philosophy,
discretion may be too much the better part of
valor--this is apparently why Arthur Waley, in a
long introduction to his translation of the Lao-tzu,
discusses the concepts of Tao, t^e, ch'i, i,
yin-yang, the five elements, and Taoist yoga, yet
defines wu-wei only in an unedifying footnote to
chapter 3 of the text: "`non-activity', i.e. rule
through t^e ('virtue', 'power') acquired in
trance."(3) But explanations of wei-wu-wei have
otherwise not been lacking. In Part One I shall
consider a number of such interpretations and argue
that they are incomplete without the more radical
understanding of wu-wei as nondual action--that is,
action in which there is no bifurcation between
subject and object: no awareness of an agent that is
believed to do the action as being distinct from an
objective action that is done. This is not to claim
that nondual action is the only meaning, of
wei-wu-wei. It may be a mistake to assume that any
one particular interpretation must be the meaning of
wu-wei, for here we may have a case of what
Wittgenstein called "family resemblances": Rather
than any one characteristic being common to all
instances, there are various overlapping
characteristics. In Part Two I make comparisons with
some recent analytic work in the philosophy of mind
and argue that, contrary to first appearances, its
conclusions are consistent with and even support the
claim that action can be nondual.
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I
(1) The simplest interpretation of wei-wu-wei is
that it means doing nothing, or as little as
possible. This may be understood either politically
or metaphysically/personally. The political
interpretation sees wu-wei as "the main precept
behind the Lao Tzu's conception of government as the
minimum amount of external interference projected
onto the individual from those in power combined
with an environment most conducive to the
individual's quest for personal fulfillment."(4) If
one leaves the people alone and lets them get on
with it, social problems will resolve
themselves--perhaps because political interference
is more often the cause of such problems than their
solution, as was certainly the case during the
Warring States period. Such an interpretation of
wu-wei is often part of a more general political
interpretation of Taoism, which, it has been
recognized, fits the Lao-tzu better than the
Chuang-tzu.(5) This view of wu-weiis also consistent
with the sole recorded reference to wu-wei by
Confucius:
The Master said, "If anyone could be said to have
affected proper order while remaining inactive
(wu-wei), it was Shun. What was there for him to do?
He simply made himself respectful and took up his
position facing due south."(6)
By regulating his own conduct so that it reflects
the moral order, the Confucian ruler sets a positive
example and is thus able to influence his
subordinates without coercing them. But this does
not necessarily imply wu-wei toward the people
generally. The emphasis in Confucianism is that the
king reigns but does not rule. In the ideal
administration, the ruler does not personally attend
to matters of government but depends upon the
charismatic influence of his virtue (te); there does
not seem to be the further implication that the
king's ministers do not need to act. The emphasis in
Taoism shifts from this need for a personal example
to an anarchism which allows all social and
political organization to be consistent with the
Tao.(7) The problem in either case is much the same.
Despite the hopes of utopians and economic
conservatives, neither is very practicable. Perhaps
such government might work in an unthreatened
traditional society, but I do not see how it could
be successful in the cutthroat Warring States period
nor, given its complexity and rapid transformation,
in our contemporary interdependent world. Insofar as
the meaning of wu-wei is political nonaction, it
seems to have little relevance for us today--perhaps
unfortunately, if the implication is that modern
society cannot harmonize with the Tao.
The personal interpretation of wei-wu-wei as
literally "doing nothing" does not fare much better,
and in fact this view does not seem to have been
very common. In his commentary on the Chuang-tzu,
Kuo Hsiang criticized it: "Hearing the theory of wu
wei, some people think that lying down is better
than walking. These people are far wrong in
understanding the ideas of Chuang Tzu."(8)
Nevertheless, Fung Yu-lan, after quoting this, went
on to add: "despite this criticism, it would seem
that in their understanding of Chuang Tzu such
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people were not far wrong."(9) This probably reveals
more about Fung than Chuang Tzu, but I think that
Fung is not completely wrong. In fact, such a
reading is consistent with the nondual
interpretation, which I shall offer later, in that
complete "not acting" requires eliminating the
sense-of-self which is inclined to interfere.
Noninterference is not really possible unless one
has dissipated the fog of expectations and desires
that keeps one from experiencing the world as it is
in itself (Tao), and the judgment that "something
must be done" is usually part of that fog. Josh
Billings said he was an old man and had had lots of
troubles---most of which never happened. Many,
perhaps most, of our problems originate in our own
minds, in an anxiety which is projected outward into
the environment.
What might be seen as a corollary of "doing
nothing" is knowing when to stop. Chapter 77 of the
Lao-tzu compares the course of nature to a bow:
"That which is at the top is pulled down; that which
is at the bottom is brought up. That which is
overfull is reduced; that which is deficient is
supplemented." Thus the man who abides in the Tao
never wants to reach an extreme and, knowing the
right time to stop, is free from danger (chapters 15
and 44). Nature, here including man, is a succession
of alternations: when one extreme is reached a
reversal occurs (chapter 40), as with such natural
phenomena as day-night and summer-winter--which
insight was later elaborated into the complexities
of the Yin-Yang school.
(2) A more common interpretation of wei-wu-wei sees
it as action which does not force but yields. Rather
than being a version of doing nothing, this might be
called "the action of passivity." Under the weight
of a heavy snowfall, pine branches break off, but by
bending, the willow can drop its burden and spring
up again. Chuang Tzu gives the example of the
intoxicated man who is not killed when he falls out
of his carriage because he does not resist the fall.
This would seem to be an argument for alcoholism,
but no: "If such integrity of the spirit can be got
from wine, how much greater must be the integrity
that is got from Heaven."(10) So wu-wei is a
recommendation to be soft and yielding, as Lao Tzu's
favorite metaphor water. Often the character joh(a)
is translated as "weakness,"(11) but "weakness" has
unavoidably negative connotations which do not seem
right in this context--especially since joh is
usually (but not always: for example, chapters 8 and
66) a means to conquer in the end. It is because
water is the softest and most yielding thing that it
is able to overcome the hard and strong.
An apparent corollary of this (parallel to the
corollary mentioned earlier) is that a very slight
action may be enough to have extraordinary results,
if done at the right time. This is "contemplating
the difficult with the easy, working on the great
with the small" (chapter 63). In particular, one
should deal with potentially big problems before
they become big (chapter 64); the growth of the
sapling is easy to affect, but not that of a mature
tree. Both of these points seem undeniable, if
limited, truisms; the challenge is knowing when and
how to apply them.
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(3) Probably the most common interpretation of
wei-wu-wei is action that is natural. Creel quotes
several examples:
The natural is sufficient. If one strives, he fails.
Wang Pi(12)
(The Taoist saint) chooses this attitude in the
conviction that only by so doing the 'natural'
development of things will favour him.
Duyvendak(13)
According to the theory of "having-no-activity", a
man should restrict his activities to what is
necessary and what is natural. "Necessary means
necessary to the achievement of a certain purpose,
and never over-doing. "Natural" means following
one's Te with no arbitrary effort.
Fung Yu-lan(14)
The problem with such explanations is that they do
not explain very much. As Creel asks, how can we
distinguish natural from unnatural action? The term
is so pliable that it ends up meaning whatever one
wants it to mean--as all those who read the
ingredients in "natural food" products know. Fung's
use of "arbitrary" just pushes the question one step
back--how do we distinguish arbitrary from not
arbitrary? And is not the passing of such dualistic
judgments condemned in Taoist literature?(15) Wang
Pi equates the natural with not striving, and others
with not making willful effort,(16) but this, too,
begs the question unless some criterion is offered
for distinguishing willful from nonwillful action;
otherwise we are left, like Fung, lying down. One
suggested criterion is spontaneity,(17) but at best
that can be only a necessary and not a sufficient
condition: The anger I spontaneously feel when
someone steps on my toe, or runs off with my wife,
is not necessarily a case of wu-wei.
None of the preceding is a refutation of the
view that wei-wu-wei is natural, nonwillful action,
and so forth. The problem is rather that such
descriptions do not in themselves go far enough; but
allied with the proper criterion they may be
valuable. In fact, the concept of nondual action
that I shall offer can be seen as such a criterion.
The root irruption of the natural order of things is
man's self-consciousness, and the return to Tao is
conversely a realization of the ground of one's
being--including one's own consciousness. If
consciousness of self is the ultimate source of
unnatural action, then natural action must be that
in which there is no such self-consciousness--in
which there is no awareness of the agent as being
distinct from "his" act.
(4) The main problem with understanding wei-wu-wer
is that it is a genuine paradox: the union of two
contradictory concepts--action ("...nothing remains
undone") and nonaction ("nothing is done..."). The
resolution of this paradox must somehow combine both
concepts, but how this can be anything other than a
contradiction in terms is difficult to understand.
So it is not surprising that some scholars have
concluded that it is an unresolvable con-
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tradiction. Creel, for example, decided that this
greatest Taoist paradox was probably unintentional,
due to the juxtaposition of two different aspects in
early Taoism: an original "contemplative aspect" and
a subsequent "purposive aspect." The first denotes
"an attitude of genuine non-action, motivated by a
lack of desire to participate in the struggle of
human affairs," while the second is "a technique by
means of which one who practices it may gain
enhanced control over human affairs."(18) The former
is merely passive (hence "nonaction"), the latter is
an attempt to act in and reform the world
("action"), and, as Creel emphasizes, these are not
only different but "logically and essentially they
are incompatible."(19) Creel admits that this
interpretation is not to be found within the Taoist
texts themselves, and recognizes that this puts him
in the awkward position of claiming that the
Chuang-tzu (more contemplative) is earlier than the
compilation of the Lao-tzu (more purposive).(20)
What is worse, he must acknowledge that "we find
'contemplative' Taoism and 'purposive' Taoism lying
cheek by jowl, and sometimes scrambled in a grand
mixture, in the Lao Tzu and the Chuang Tzu," but he
tries to justify this by saying that men are seldom
wholly governed by logic.(21) I think that the
problem is rather that, because Creel here is wholly
governed by logic, he misses the fact that the
paradox is resolved by a particular experience--the
realization of Tao--which cannot be understood so
logically. As with the Vedaantic realization of
Brahman and the Buddhist attainment of nirvaa.na,
this experience is nondual in the sense that there
is no differentiation between subject and object,
between self and world. The implication of this for
action is that there is no longer any bifurcation
between an agent, the self that is believed to do
the action, and the objective action that is done.
As usually understood, "action" requires an agent
that is active; "nonaction" implies a subject that
is passive, which does nothing and/oryields. The
"action of non-action" occurs when there is no "I"
to be either active or passive, which is an
experience that can be expressed only paradoxically.
The simpler interpretations of wu-wei as
noninterference and yielding view not-acting as a
kind of action; nondual action reverses this and
sees nonaction---that which does not change--in the
action.
That wei-wu-wei means nondual action is
suggested in the Chuang-tzu, although not so much by
the context of its references to wu-wei as by its
description of another, very similar, paradox. In
contrast to the twelve instances of wu-wei in the
Lao-tzu, there are some fifty-six occurrences in the
Chuang-tzu but only three of these occur in the
seven "inner chapters."(22) It is significant that
two of these clearly describe more than
noninterference or yielding:
Now you have a large tree and are anxious about its
uselessness. why do you not plant it in the domain
of non-existence, in a wide and barren wild? By its
side you may wander in nonaction (wu-wei); under it
you may sleep in happiness.(23)
Tao has reality and evidence, but no action (wu-wei)
or form.(24)
Unconsciously they stroll beyond the dirty world and
wander in the realm of nonaction (wu-wei).(25)
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But more important is the paradox we find in chapter
six, where Nu Chu teaches the Tao to Pu Liang I:
...Having disregarded his own existence, he (Pu
Liang I) was enlightened... gained vision of the One
... was able to transcend the distinction of past
and present... was able to enter the realm where
life and death are no more. Then, to him, the
destruction of life did not mean death, nor the
prolongation of life an addition to the duration of
his existence. He would follow anything; he would
receive anything. To him, everything was in
destruction, everything was in construction. This is
called tranquillity-in-disturbance. Tranquillity in
disturbance means perfection.(26)
Here "tranquillity in disturbance" (or
"Peace-in-Strife"(27) ) cannot mean a lack of
activity. Rather, there is a sense of unchanging
peace in the midst of continual
destruction-and-construction-that is, ceaseless
transformation, which activity includes his own.
This is possible only because Pu Liang I first
"disregarded his own existence, " hence the
overcoming of the duality of self and nonself and
"gaining vision of the One."
It is significant that one finds the same
paradox in other Asian traditions which maintain the
nonduality of subject and object. Not surprisingly,
it is most common in Chinese Buddhism, where Taoist
influence is to be expected. However, that
wei-wu-wei is a paradoxical synthesis of nonaction
in action is more clearly recognized in Buddhism.
Seng Chao maintained in the Chao Lun that action and
nonaction are not exclusive: Things in action are at
the same time always in nonaction; things in
nonaction are always in action.(28) This claim is
expounded in the first chapter, "On the Immutability
of Things," but the point is important enough to be
repeated in chapter four, "Nirvana is Nameless":
"Through non-action, movement is always quiescent.
Through action, everything is acted upon, means that
quiescence is always in motion."(29) One of the
earliest Ch'an texts, the Hsin Hsin Ming of the
third patriarch Seng-ts'an, states twice that the
awakened mind transcends the duality of rest and
nonrest,(30) echoing the argument of Naagaarjuna
that both motion and rest are incomprehensible and
hence unreal (`suunya).(31) Probably the best-known
example, definitely not derived from Taoism, is
found in a passage from the Bhagavadgiitaa which
explicitly describes action which is yet no action:
He who in action sees inaction and action in
inaction--he is wise among men, he is a yogin, and
he has accomplished all his work.
Having abandoned attachment to the fruit of
works, ever content, without any kind of dependence,
he does nothing though he is ever engaged in work.
(IV, 18, 20)(32)
The Sanskrit word for action, karman, suggests an
interpretation of these verses which sees them as
recommending action that does not bring karmic
results. In answer to the Buddhist and Yogic
emphasis on withdrawal from the world of social
obligation, the Giitaa claims that action too may
lead to Krishna because no karman accrues if an act
is performed "without attachment to the fruit of
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action." This does not disagree with a nondual
interpretation of these verses, but supplements it.
Lao Tzu, Seng Chao, and the Giitaa may be seen to be
describing different aspects of the same experience
of nondual action. The difference between the first
two is in which half of the dualism of agent <->
action is eliminated. The Taoist wei-wu-wei is the
denial of an objective action, that I perform some
action. The Buddhist concept of anatta and the "no
mind" of Ch'an emphasize the denial of an agent,
that I perform some action. But to deny a subjective
agent or to deny an objective action amounts to the
same thing, since each half of the polarity is
dependent upon the other. The importance of the
Giitaa passage is that it implies how this
bifurcation occurs. The sense of dualism arises
because action is done with reference to the fruit
of action; that is, because an act is performed with
some goal or aim in mind: I do an action in order to
gain some particular result. The Giitaa may be
understood either more narrowly as proscribing
selfish action in favor of work "for the maintenance
of the world," or more broadly as showing the
problem with all intentional action. The Buddhist
concept of karman, which emphasizes intention, is
another expression of the broader view: Although
"good actions" may lead to pleasurable rebirth in
the deva realm, that is still sa^msaara. One must
act in such a way as to escape both good and bad
karmic consequences. Both good and bad karmic acts
originate from dualism: In the former case, the self
manipulates the world for its own advantage; in the
latter case, the self consciously works for the
benefit of something or someone else. The only way
to transcend the dualism of self and other is to act
without intention-that is, without attachment to a
projected goal to be obtained from the action--in
which case the agent is the act. It is attachment to
and identification with thought (that is, the
projected goal) which gives rise to a sense of
duality between the mind that intends and the body
that is used to attain the intended result.
But how does the nonduality of agent and act
resolve the paradox of "the action of nonaction"?
One may accept the negation of a subject, in which
case the action cannot be something "objective," yet
there is still an action. The answer is that, when
one completely becomes an action, one loses the
sense that it is an action.
....For an action of the whole being does away with
all partial actions and thus also with all
sensations of action (which depend entirely on the
limited nature of actions)--and hence it comes to
resemble passivity.
This is the activity of the human being who has
become whole: it has been called not-doing, for
nothing particular, nothing partial is at work in
man and thus nothing of him intrudes into the world.
(Buber)(33)
As long as there is the sense of an agent
distinct from the action, the act can be only
"partial" and there is the sensation of action due
to the relation between them. Only in nondual action
can there be no sense of an ego-consciousness
outside the action, for otherwise there is a
perspective from which an act is
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observed to occur (or not occur). When one is the
action, no residue of self-consciousness remains to
observe that action objectively. The sense of wu-wei
is that of a quiet center which does not change
although activity constantly occurs, as in Chuang
Tzu's "Tranquillity-in-Disturbance."
Such an action can be experienced as nondual
only if it is complete and whole in itself. It must
not be related to anything else, for such relating
is an act of thought, which shows that there is
thinking as well as acting and the action is only
"partial." If the nondual act is complete in itself
and does not refer to something else, it turns out
to be meaningless: that is, it simply is what it is
(tathataa) . This pinpoints the problem with
intention, since it is the reference to some goal to
be derived from the act that gives the act meaning.
In contrast, the daanapaaramitaa of Mahaayaana is
generosity in which the giver, the gift, and the
recipient are all realized to be empty (`suunya):
"Here a Bodhisattva gives a gift, and he does not
apprehend a self, a recipient, a gift; also no
reward of his giving."(34) Such "giving Of
no-giving" (as it might be termed) can be done
"without leaning on something" because there is no
intention tied to it. The best giving, like the best
action generally, is "free from traces," in which
case there is not even the sense that it is a gift.
Nondual action seems effortless because there is
not the duality of one part of oneself pushing
another part--in the case of physical activity, of
an "I" which needs to exert itself in order to get
the muscles to move. Rather, "I" am the muscles.
This gives insight into a number of Zen koans such
as the following:
Master Shogen said, "Why is it that a man of
great strength cannot lift up his legs?"
And he also said, "We do not use the tongue to
speak." (Or: "It is not the tongue that we speak
With.")(35)
This amounts to a denial of the mind-body dualism.
However, this is not materialism or behaviorism.
Rather than negating the psyche, the implication is
that the body itself is wholly psychic. The
Praj~naapaaramitaa Heart Suutra states that one who
has realized the emptiness of all things acts freely
because he is "without hindrance in the mind."
Clearly this is one way in which mental events
interfere with nondual action, by sometimes keeping
one's physical actions from occurring naturally and
spontaneously according to the situation. The
nondual "psychic body," which knows how to react
perfectly well by itself, suffers a kind of
paralysis due to psychological "hindrances." Asian
martial arts usually include some meditation in
their training in order to avoid this, so students
can react spontaneously to attack without being
paralyzed by fear and without needing to deliberate
first.
However, the problem with dualistic action is
not just "hindrance in the mind" but intention in
general:
Cultivation is of no use for the attainment of Tao.
The only thing that one can do is to be free from
defilement. When one's mind is stained with thoughts
of life and
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death, or deliberate action, that is defilement. The
grasping of the Truth is the function of
everyday-mindedness. Everyday-mindedness is free
from intentional action, free from concepts of right
and wrong, taking and giving, the finite and the
infinite.... All our daily activities--walking,
standing, sitting, lying down--all response to
situations, our dealing with circumstances as they
arise: all this is Tao.
(Ma-tsu)(36)
Ordinary mind is the Tao(37) because, when they are
free from intentional action, daily activities are
realized to be nondual. This gives insight into how
the "mindfulness of body" described in the
Satipa.t.thaana Suutra, and Theravaada vipassana
practice in general, might function: In the slow
"walking meditation" of vipassana, for example, one
"lets go" of all intentions by concentrating on the
act of walking itself. This also explains why those
Zen koans which ask "Why...?" never receive a
straight answer. "Unmon said, 'The world is vast and
wide like this. Why do we put on our seven-panel
robe at the sound of the bell? '"(38) From a
contemporary Zen master's commentary on this case:
...Some of you are familiar with the last line of
the mealtime sutra, "We and this food and our eating
are equally empty." If you can acknowledge this
fact, you will realize that when you put on your
robe, there is no reason or "why" in it.... There is
no reason for the "why" in anything! When we stand
up, there is no reason "why". We just stand up! When
we eat, we just eat without any reason "why". When
we put on the kesa (seven-panel robe), we just put
it on. Our life is a continuous just... just...
just.(39)
This passage clarifies what "intentionless activity"
means. From the usual perspective, it seems
impossible to avoid intentions. We eat to satisfy
our hunger, for example, and even taking a walk can
be seen to have a purpose such as to relax. But the
claim just presented is that even now actions of
ours like dressing and eating are not purposive.
"Intentionless activity" does not mean merely random
and spontaneous action, but involves realizing the
distinction between thought (the intention) and the
action. The thought (for example, "time to eat") is
whole and complete in itself; the act (eating) is
also whole and complete in itself. It is when the
two are not experienced wholly and discretely but
only in relation to each other, the first as if
"superimposed" upon the second, that action seems
intentional and therefore dualistic, and there is
the sense of an agent/mind that uses the act/body
for the sake of....
In answer to such stock questions as "Why did
Bodhidharma come from the West?" Zen masters such as
Ma-tsu, Huang Po, and Lin-chi were apt to strike the
student or shout in his ear. If the Tao is
nonintentional, everyday-mind, such responses were
not evasive. They were answers to the question,
demonstrations of "why"--examples of nondual action,
each of which is complete in itself.
One day the world-honoured one (Sakyamuni Buddha)
ascended his seat. Manjusri struck the gavel and
said, "Clearly behold the Dharma of the King of the
Dharma; the Dharma of the King of the Dharma is
`just this'."(40)
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II
Recent Western work in the philosophy of mind has
developed the view that the continuity of
consciousness is maintained not by memory, as the
earlier empiricists believed, but by the stream of
intentional action. Stuart Hampshire, for example,
maintains this in Thought and Action:
British empiricists since Hume have tried, to
their own dissatisfaction, to represent the
continuity of a person's consciousness as some
binding thread of memory running through the
separate data of consciousness. But within the
trajectory of an action, with its guiding intention,
there is already a continuity through change, and,
if it is true that a conscious person is necessarily
engaged upon some action, however trivial, this
known continuity is interrupted only by sleep and by
other forms of unconsciousness.... I do distinguish
myself, as the inner core that is the source of
directed effort, from all my passing states, and it
is this sense of myself as the source of meaningful
action that gives me the sense of my continuity from
the present into the future.(41)
...a conscious mind is always and necessarily
envisaging possibilities of action, of finding means
towards ends, as a body is always and necessarily
occupying a certain position. To be a conscious
human being, and therefore a thinking being, is to
have intentions and plans, to be trying to bring
about a certain effect. We are therefore always
actively following what is happening now as leading
into what is to happen next. Because intentional
action is ineliminable from our notion of
experience, so also is temporal order.(42)
This seems to contradict what has been
maintained in the first part of this article, but it
need not. If we take the "conscious mind" of the
second passage to mean "consciousness (or awareness)
of self," then this view about the relation between
"the sense of myself" and intentional action is
consistent with what was claimed earlier. The only
significant difference is that, because Hampshire
believes intentional action to be "ineliminable from
our notion of experience," he does not envision the
possibility of nondual action as a result of
eliminating "the source of directed effort." If
intentional action were eliminable, then the
implication of Hampshire's position is that this
would also eliminate the sense of self. Hampshire is
wrong when he claims that "a conscious mind is
always and necessarily envisaging possibilities of
action, " for there is the counter-example of
meditation--an example very much to the point, since
it is generally agreed to be a very important part,
and perhaps the most important part, of the path for
those who wish to experience nonduality. It maybe
objected that in meditation, too, one has intentions
and makes efforts to concentrate on something, but
this is not the case in the deeper stages of
meditation, for in samaadhi the sense of self
evaporates, and precisely because all effort and
intention cease. Hampshire's account seems valid as
an explanation of the usual dualistic way of
understanding experience, but it does not amount to
a critique of nonduality. On the contrary, if one
accepts (as Hampshire certainly would not) a
distinction between sense-of-self and nondual
consciousness, and takes his view as referring to
the former, then his accountt would agree with the
first part of this article in explaining the
difference between dualistic and nondual
consciousness as due to
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intentionality. Hampshire's position is even implied
by this account of nondual action, for his is a
description of why experience seems to be dualistic.
There is still a serious problem with
Hampshire's account. His explanation of the
continuity of consciousness as due to intentionality
takes for granted what we usually cannot help but
take for granted, some sort of causal relationship
between intentions and actions. However, Hume
pointed out, as a corollary to his critique of the
causal relation, that no one can hope to understand
how volition produces motion in our limbs: "That
their motion follows the command of the will is a
matter of common experience, like other natural
events: but the power or energy by which this is
effected, like that in other natural events, is
unknown and inconceivable."(43) In other words, the
relationship between intention and action, which
normally we readily accept, is really
incomprehensible. The implication of this is that
intentionality--the sense of myself as the source of
meaningful action, to use Hampshire's words--cannot
provide my continuity through change, for that
continuity between guiding intention and an action
is itself philosophically inexplicable. One might be
inclined to say that it is only consciousness which
can bridge the gap; however, one then has not
explained the continuity of consciousness but merely
postulated it ad hoc to resolve the difficulty.
This is a problem for those who, like Hampshire,
presuppose a dualistic account of experience and
therefore must attribute some type of reality to
"the sense of myself"--thus reifying consciousness
into a self, in effect. But having accepted Hume's
critique, one cannot thereafter bring the self back
in through the backdoor, as it were, as "continuity
of consciousness." This inexplicable relation
between intention and action is not a problem for
the nondualist, who accepts that the consciousness
of self is actually illusory and agrees that a
fictive self has been postulated in order to bridge
the "gap." The nondualist can accept this "gap"
between thoughts and action--in fact he can deny any
causal link--and this is why all actions are always
nondual, even when not realized as such.
Hampshire might try to bridge that gap between
thought and action by agreeing on the one hand that
the relation is incomprehensible yet asserting on
the other that, as we experience in daily life, it
is undeniable; as Hume said, "That their motion
follows the command of the will is a matter of
common experience...." But that this is undeniable
is by no means true, as the history of the mind-body
problem indicates. Nietzsche, for example, denies
that intention is the cause of an event, and
reverses Hume by extrapolating this denial of
volition into a denial of the causal relation
generally:
Critique of the concept "cause"... We have
absolutely no experience of a cause; psychologically
considered, we derive the entire concept from the
subjective conviction that we are causes, namely,
that the arm moves. But that is an error. We
separate ourselves, the doers, from the deed, and we
make use of this pattern everywhere--we seek a doer
for every event. What is it we have done? We have
misunderstood the feeling of strength, tension,
resistance, a muscular
P84
feeling that is already the beginning of the act, as
the cause, or we have taken the will to do this or
that for a cause because the action follows upon
it--....
In summa: an event is neither effected nor does
it effect. Cause is a capacity to produce effects
that has been super-added to the events--(44)
...Only because we have introduced subjects,
"doers", into things does it appear that all events
are the consequences of compulsion exerted upon
subjects--exetted by whom? again by a "doer". Cause
and effect--a dangerous concept as long as one
thinks of something that causes and something upon
which an effect is produced.
... When one has grasped that the "subject" is
not something that creates effects, but only a
fiction, much follows.
It is only after the model of the subject that
we have invented the reality of things and projected
them into the medley of sensations. If we no longer
believe in the effective subject, then belief also
disappears in effective things, in reciprocation,
cause and effect between those phenomena that we
call things....(45)
For Nietzsche, intention and the will in general
are epiphenomena not amounting to the cause of an
action. This denial of volition (by no means
uncommon(46)) would seem to imply determinism, but
the concept of nondual action suggests an
alternative that escapes the usual dilemma of
freedom or determinism. The classical statement of
that problem is dualistic in presupposing a
conscious subject whose actions either are
completely determined by a causal chain (the
strongest causal influence reaps effect) or are free
from a causal chain (or, rather, free from complete
determination, since totally uncaused, random choice
does not seem to provide freedom in any meaningful
sense). Both alternatives assume the existence of a
conscious self distinct from its actions and
existent outside the causal chain--although its
actions may be totally determined by external
causes. But if, as the nondualist maintains, there
is no self, this does not imply complete
determinism, for if there is no subject then there
are also no "objective" causal factors. The
deterministic view implies a self, helpless before
causal influences which struggle among themselves to
see which is strongest, rather like medieval knights
competing to see who will win the hapless lady; but
if there is no hapless consciousness here, the
situation must be understood differently. If
"liberty or freedom signifies properly the absence
of opposition" (Hobbes(47)) then non-duality would
seem rather to imply limitless freedom, since there
is no "other" to be opposed. Elsewhere I have argued
that the nondualist denial of self (as in Buddhism)
is equivalent to asserting that there is only the
Self (as in Vedaanta).(48) We would normally infer
that the former implies complete determinism, the
latter absolute freedom. However, if the universe is
a whole (Brahman, Tao, Vij~naptimaatra, and so
forth) and if, as Hua Yen Buddhism develops in its
image of Indra's Net, each particular is not
isolated but contains and manifests that whole, then
whenever "I" act it is not "I" but the whole
universe that "does" the action or rather is the
action. If we accept that the universe is
self-caused, then it acts freely whenever anything
is done. Thus, from the nondualist perspective,
complete determinism turns out to be equivalent to
absolute freedom.(49)
P85
NOTES
1. From "Burnt Norton, " in T. S. Eliot,
Collected Poems 1909-1962 (London: Faber and Faber,
1963), p. 191.
2. This and the following passages from the
Lao-tzu are from the translation by Chang
Chung-yuan, in Tao: A New Way of Thinking (Harper
and Row, 1975), with modifications by me; hereafter
cited as Chang, Tao.
3. Arthur Waley, The Way and Its Power (London:
Alien and Unwin, 1968); hereafter cited as Waley,
The Way. The definition given in Waley's translation
of the Lun-yu is also not very illuminating:
"wu-wei, the phrase applied by Taoists to the
immobility of self-hypnosis" (The Analects of
Confucius (London, 1936), p. 193).
4. Roger T. Ames, "Wu-wei in 'The Art of
Rulership' Chapter of Huai Nan Tzu," Philosophy East
and West 31, no. 2 (April 1981): 196; hereafter
cited as Ames, "Wu-wei."
5. See ibid., pp. 196-198, and Herlee G. Creel,
What Is Taoism?(Chicago, Illinois: University of
Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 44-47; hereafter cited as
Creel, Taoism.
6. I have borrowed Ames' translation, "Wu-wei,"
p. 194.
7. Compare Ames, "Wu-wei," pp. 194, 197.
8. Quoted in Creel, Taoism, p. 54.
9. Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese
Philosophy, p. 225, quoted by Creel, in Taoism, p.
54.
10. Waley's translation, in The Way.
11. For example, see Wing-tsit Chan's
translation in The Way of Lao Tzu(Bobbs-Merrill,
1963, reprinted in A Source Book of Chinese
Philosophy (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1963), pp. 139-176, chapters 36,
40, 52, 76, and 78.
12. Creel, Taoism, quoting Lao-Tzu, shang. 2a
(chap. 2).
13. Ibid., quoting Duyvendak's Tao Te Ching,
10-11.
14. Ibid., quoting Fung's A Short History of
Chinese Philosophy, pp. 100-101.
15. Ibid., p. 53.
16. "The important phrase, wu-wei, thus means
"not-having willful action" (Sung-peng Hsu, "Lao
Tzu's Conception of Evil," Philosophy East and West
26, no. 3 (July 1976): 303).
17. Ibid., p. 304: "it is important to note that
'spontaneity' is really the positive name for the
negative expression of wu-wei."
18. Creel, Taosim, p. 74. Creel first argued for
this view in "On Two Aspects in Early Taoism" (1954)
and repeated his position in "On the Origin of
Wu-wei" (1965). Both are reprinted in What Is
Taoism?
19. Ibid., p. 45.
20. Ibid., p. 46.
21. Ibid,, p. 45.
22. Ibid., p. 54.
23. Fung Yu-lan, trans., Chuang Tzu, with
commentary by Kuo Hsiang (New York: Gordon Press,
1970), p. 40.
24. Ibid., p. 117.
25. Ibid., p. 125.
26. Ibid., pp. 119-120, with emphasis by me.
27. Burton Watson, trans., The Complete Works of
Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press,
1968), p. 83.
28. See Chang Chung-yuan, Creativity and Taoism
(New York: Julian Press, 1963), p.10.
29. Chao Lun IV, 6:14b, quoted in Chang's Tao,
p. 122.
30. "When rest and no rest cease to be, then
even oneness disappears" (From the translation in
Philip Kapleau, Zen: Dawn in the West (New York:
Anchor, 1980), see pp. 187-188).
31. See the Muulamadhyamakakaarikaa, chap. 2.
32. Radhakrishnan's translation, in
Radhakrishnan and Moore, eds., Source Book in Indian
Philosophy (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1957), p. 117.
33. Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Waiter
Kaufmann, 2d ed. (Edinburgh: T. T. Clark, 1970), p.
125. This page, which describes the I-Thou
relationship as "at once... passive and active,"
shows the ambivalence of Buber's approach. In order
to maintain that "I-Thou" is a relationship, he must
P86
keep the relata distinct from each other and deny
nonduality; but this passage, like many others,
suggests nonduality.
34. Edward Conze, trans. and ed., Selected
Sayings from the Perfection of Wisdom (Boulder,
Colorado: Prajna Press, 1978), p. 67.
35. Mumonkan, case 20.
36. Quoted in Chang Chung-yuan, Original
Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism (New York: Vintage,
1971), p. 130.
37. Mumonkan, case 19.
38. Koun Yamada, Gateless Gate (Los Angeles,
California: Center Publications, 1979), p. 86.
39. Ibid., p. 88.
40. Cast 92 of The Blue Cliff Record, trans.
Thomas Cleary and J. C. Cleary (Boulder, Colorado:
Shambhala, 1977), p. 571. The experience of some
Christian mystics led them to the same conclusion:
When [Jakob] Boehme is speaking of God's life as it
is in himself he refers to it as "play"... Adam
ought to have been content to play with nature in
Paradise [Mysterium Magnum 16:10]. Adam fell when
this play became serious business, that is when
nature was made an end instead of a means. (Howard
H. Brinton, The Mystic Will (New York: Macmillan,
1930), p. 218)
Meister Eckhart:
Do all you do, acting from the core of your soul,
without a single "Why".... Thus, if you ask a
genuine person, that Is, one who acts from his
heart: "Why are you doing that?"--he will reply in
the only possible way: "I do it because I do It!"
[The just man] wants nothing, seeks nothing, and has
no reason for doing anything. As God, having no
motives, acts without them, so the just man acts
without motives. As life lives on for its own sake,
needing no reason for being, so the just man has no
reason for doing what he does. (R. B. Blakney,
trans., Meister Eckhart (New York: Harper and Row,
1941), pp. 127, 241)
41. Stuart Hampshire, Thought and Action
(London: Chatto and Windus, 1960), p. 126.
42. Ibid., p. 119.
43. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding, Section 7, Part 1.
44. F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans.
Waiter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York:
Vintage, 1968), no. 551, pp, 295-296. Nietzsche's
emphasis.
45. Ibid., no. 552, pp. 297-298.
46. "The greatest difficulty faced by every
discussion of the Will is the simple fact that there
is no other capacity of mind whose very existence
has been so consistently doubted and refuted by so
eminent a series of philosophers" (Hannah Arendt,
The Life of the Mind(New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1978), Vol. 2, p. 4).
47. Leviathan II, 21.
48. "Enlightenment in Buddhism and Advaita
Vedanta: Are Nirvana and Moksha the Same? "
International Philosophical Quarterly 22, no. 1
(March 1982).
49. This has important implications for such
completely deterministic systems as Spinoza's.
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