“Literally, Wu Wei 無爲 means ‘without doing, causing, or making.’ But practically speaking, it means without meddlesome, combative, or egotistical effort. When we learn to work with our own Inner Nature, and with the natural laws operating around us, we reach the level of wu wei.

Since the natural world follows that principle, it does not make mistakes. Mistakes are made — or imagined — by man, the creature with the overloaded brain who separates himself from the supporting network of natural laws by interfering and trying too hard.

When you work with wu wei, you put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No stress, no struggle. Egotistical desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole.

Cleverness tries to devise craftier and craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don’t belong. Wu wei doesn’t try. It doesn’t think about it. It just does it. And when it does, it doesn’t appear to do much of anything. But things get done.

Or, in the words of Chuang-tzu, the mind of wu wei “flows like water, reflects like a mirror, and responds like an echo.”

Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh