Doing Without Doing
I once had a coworker with a hobby farm. He told me what a huge hassle it was loading pigs onto a drover's truck in order to ship them to market. The animals are obstinate, extremely strong, and his barn lacked all the ramps and fencing that bigger barns use to channel livestock onto trucks. One day he found a veterinary book on animal handling. It suggested a method for moving pigs by simply placing a bucket over their heads. Since the instinct of the hog is to back up out of the bucket, the pig will invariable walk backwards and you can steer their direction of movement by pulling on the tail. He tried this method the next time he had some pigs to ship and said it worked like a charm. He simply put a plastic bucket over their heads, and they walked backwards up the ramp of the truck one at a time.
This was an example of the Daoist concept of “doing without doing”, or, wei wu wei.
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Our society is in love with brute force. We don't try to understand the subtle and complex elements of a problem, we just throw resources at it and try to pound it into submission. That's why our foreign policy never attempts to understand the various shades of grey in a country---we just blow things up. If people are taking drugs we don't try to understand why---we just declare “war” and start throwing them in jail. If we have traffic jams we don't try to rethink the way we plan cities---we just build bigger and bigger freeways. And if we have truculent animals that don't want to get onto a truck, most of us don't try to understand their behaviour---we just lose our temper and just try to beat them into submission.
It doesn't matter that this behaviour never works. That's because it really isn't about solving the issue, whether it be terrorism, drug abuse, traffic jams, or, obstinate pigs. Instead, we make it all about venting our frustrations and expressing our rage at a world that doesn't operate the way we want it to.
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One of the exercises that one does when learning taijiquan as a martial art is “pushing hands” (tuishou).
This involves a process of two people holding each other's arms and going through a series of back and forth movements. The idea is that you learn how to sense each other's ability to maintain their balance. If your have achieved a certain degree of proficiency, you will gain the ability to gently push a person at exactly the right time and in exactly the right way to totally unbalance them. Similarly, you can also learn how to be “unsubstantial” so that when they try to push you, they find themselves pushing against empty space, which will also cause them lose their balance. And if you can unbalance the person, then they will be vulnerable to a gentle pull in the direction that they are already going. This is the principle behind the taijiquan saying that you can “deflect one thousand pounds with four ounces”. This too is an example of “doing without doing”.
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In the middle of my city there is a beautiful area where the Speed and Eramosa rivers meet. Their banks have been naturalized and many people canoe, walk along trails, fish, and generally enjoy nature in an urban setting. Unfortunately, two major provincial roads come close to each other there. The official city plan at one time called for both of these roads to eventually connect through the construction of a road extension and large concrete bridge. This would have totally destroyed this jewel-like park.
The planning department understood what was at stake, but unfortunately, it was considered subservient to the city engineers. What this meant was that roads were not set out according to what the planning department wanted. Instead, the engineering department decided where roads would go, and planning's job was to accommodate people to what is ideal for the automobile. This meant that no matter how beautiful the park where the two rivers met, it would be destroyed in order to allow cars to move more smoothly through the city.
But the beautiful confluence of the two rivers is still there and no concrete bridge exists. Why? As my then city councillor explained it to me, the planning department realized that they could never win a direct fight with engineering. So instead of arguing against the road extension on aesthetic grounds, they instead set out to get the community on their side.
The local university found itself hosting a convention of timber framers. And as part of their activities, they offered to build a timber frame structure for the city if it would provide the land and materials. The planning department seized this opportunity and said that they wanted a timber frame pedestrian bridge over the Speed river where it meets up with the Eramosa. The result was an absolutely gorgeous covered bridge that offers the ideal place to view the confluence. Hundreds of local residents watched the official opening ceremony. People have been married on the bridge. It is one of the city's most important landmarks.
A few years later and the time came for the city to act on its engineering plan to connect the two roads and build the bridge. When the community realized that what was being proposed was a ugly concrete bridge filled with noisy traffic that would be running close to the timber frame pedestrian bridge, there was an instant insurrection. The Council had to face the political equivalent of pitchforks and torches. They quickly changed the plan and the two roads have never been connected. The planning department didn't openly defy the engineering department, but they won the struggle. That too is an example of doing without doing.
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It's important to understand the principle. But that isn't enough. One has to be able to apply it. And to be able to do that, one has to develop the right way of looking at the world. People don't calmly choose to lash out and attack problems with brute force. Instead, they get into the habit of allowing their emotions to overwhelm their reason. Just like in push hands one learns how to feel another person's balance and learn to “deflect one thousand pounds with four ounces”, so too through specific Daoist practices such as sitting and forgetting, and, holding onto the One, one learns how to remain calm and carefully observe the real situation before taking action. And if you do that, one will eventually gain the ability to do without doing.
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