Dao & De: Making the Most of Your Wave

One of Daoism’s core texts is known as the Dao De Jing. (Sometimes you see it spelled Tao Te Ching.) It’s pronounced “Dow-Deh-Ching,” and it means “The Classic Text of Dao & De.”

I won’t be delving into the text itself in this article, but I do want to explore these concepts of Dao and De. Why? Because they give us a framework for getting the most out of our lives.

So…What are they?!?

Let’s start with Dao. Now, I must warn you that “Dao” is notoriously difficult to define. In fact, the first line of the Dao De Jing says, “The Dao that can be spoken of is not the true Dao.” (!)

With that caveat in place, I’ll give it a whirl.

Often translated as “the Way,” the term “Dao” is pointing to an “unfolding,” a “leading forth,” a “way-making.” I liken it to a river—the river of life we’re all a part of. This river has a momentum to it, an onward-ness, a force, which we experience as the present-moment unfolding of our lives.

Life is just…happening. It proceeds at every moment, regardless of any attempts to pin it down. Like a river released from a dam, life floods forth, carving out a path forward.

This Dao-river is one and it is manifold. What do I mean by that?

Well, on the one hand, it’s a single force, a totality, a whole; the life force; our shared experience of existence. On the other hand, as this river rushes onward, it gives rise to countless individual waves. Each wave is manifesting in its own particular way.

So, the term “Dao” covers the “universal unfolding”—the river of life—and the “particular unfolding” of individual waves.

To the Daoist sage, nothing is fixed or isolated. Every “thing” is actually an “event,” and every event exists in relationship to other events. Each “thing” in existence is a wave—it forms, it temporarily exists, and it dissolves back into the river. You and I are such waves. Each wave is unique, a personal articulation emerging from the great river of oneness.

We use thoughts and words to try to understand and describe life, but these thoughts and words are themselves waves; the river cannot be tamed, no matter how hard we try pin it down with our concepts.

Our minds work by splitting apart the seamlessness of life, comparing this to that. But the river is, in the end, indivisible. There is no objective outside view of things. This is why it’s ultimately impossible to definitively speak about the Dao (“The Dao that can be spoken of is not the true Dao”). The Dao defies our conceptualizing. There’s only unfolding.

So, to summarize, this notion of “Dao” makes room both for the whole and the particular. It is the “field” (the backdrop, the context—the river) as well as the “focus” (the particular thing rising out of that field—the wave).

Field and focus, totality and specificity, background and foreground, context and content, the consistent and the new, the universal and the unique. All of it, flooding forth, unfolding in this very moment.

Got it?

Whew! That wasn’t so bad, was it? Okay, now what about De?

De refers to our capacity to optimize our waves.

When we have De (which can be translated as “virtue,” “skillfulness,” “power,” or “excellence”), we make the most of our circumstances. We maximize our own particular manifestation of the Dao (our life-wave), while promoting the flourishing of all other waves in our field of influence.

We have a hand in the creation of our reality, and our actions affect the experience of all the other life-forms around us (human and non-human alike). When we “make our way” with skill, we find that we’re flowing with the river; this makes us feel at home in the world, at peace with our life.

But we can easily get confused by the river’s rhythms. Our meddling minds trip us up and we create chaotic waters.

So, how can we get out of our own way? How can we cultivate De (“virtue,” “skillfulness,” “power,” “excellence”)?

***

This is where the concept of Wu Wei comes in. (I promise, no more new terms after this one!)

Wu Wei (pronounced “Woo-Way”) is often translated as “non-doing.” It’s said that the wise person “does non-doing.” Weird, right?

Since “non-doing” can be a confusing thing to get our heads around, it might be more useful to interpret Wu Wei as “not intervening” or “not interfering” or “not meddling.” It’s pointing at our capacity to get out of our own way.

To help us understand Wu Wei, Daoist teachers tend to highlight the difference between attention and intention.

Attention is non-judgmental awareness. It’s the state we gradually develop in meditative practices: the capacity to “listen” inwardly with our whole being. To be present, open, attuned, spacious, stable, still.

Intention is a form of mental activity. We’re churning the mind, strategizing, intending for something to happen. There’s an agenda, typically based on a warped view of the world and our place in it.

The more we “turn down the volume” of our intentions (and the countless thoughts they spawn) and develop the skill of attention, the better we’ll be able to “make our way” in the world.

Attention helps us to see life as a process only happening right now instead of a fixed thing occurring some other time. As our attention deepens, we begin to drop our narrow agendas, our mistaken ideas of being a “separate” self in a “static” world. We start to see things not as they “should” be, but as they are. We establish a “frictionless equilibrium” with our co-waves (to quote Ames & Hall in their fantastic introduction to their translation of the the Dao De Jing).

Through attention, we become aware of the interplay of “the one” and “the many.” We learn about the river and how waves form and dissolve. We start to understand the “mutuality of opposites”—the truth that soft becomes hard and hard soft; young becomes old and old young; light becomes dark and dark light; and so on.

Attention pares things down; it quiets the noise; it simplifies our desires and softens our demands. Attention empties out our heart-mind so that we can be awake and receptive and non-reactive.

And yet—attention is active! It’s not passive or weak or bland. It’s a dynamic posture that requires consistent upkeep. But the upkeep is worthwhile, for attention serves as the fertile soil from which wise intentions sprout forth. After all, we need intentions to do anything at all. We’re not trying to eradicate them. We’re simply seeking to gain some mastery over them.

Those of you who have spent some time doing meditative practices know that we resist in so very many ways. Our minds push and pull, seeking stimulation and satisfaction and escape. We resist in ways we’re conscious of, and, more often, in ways that lie beneath the surface of our awareness.

When we’re consumed with our resisting mind, we’re stuck in “doing” mode rather than the “non-doing” of Wu Wei…though, as I’ve mentioned, “non-doing” is a less-than-ideal translation. What Wu Wei really seems to mean is “the absence of any course of action that interferes with De (‘virtue,’ ‘skillfulness,’ ‘power,’ ‘excellence’).”

When we nurture De, we allow for the flourishing of our own wave, as well as the flourishing of all the waves around us, on their own terms. In doing so, we enrich the world.

As chapter 64 of the Dao De Jing says:

Those who ‘do’ things ruin them.
Those who control things lose them.
Thus, since the sages do things ‘Wu Wei,’
They do not ruin them.
Since they don’t try to control things,
They do not lose them.

Taking the time to cultivate attention, hone our intentions, establish Wu Wei (“non-interfering”), and nurture De (“virtue,” “skillfulness,” “power,” “excellence”) is especially valuable in times of conflict. Without these skills in place, we simply react. Our minds speed up as we find ways to justify and perpetuate the escalation of violence.

Stabilized attention, on the other hand, allows us to see where a situation has come from and anticipate where it’s headed. We see the waves clearly and we orient ourselves to them in the best way we can. Attention slows things down; it gives birth to enlightened intentions; it inclines us toward peace.

That’s not to say that we become a punching bag for the world. We still take a stand as needed. But it’s coming from an expansive view and a felt sense of our relationship with the world (all the waves within our field of influence), as opposed to narrow emotionality or habitual reactivity.

***

So…how do we develop of attention, anyway? What should we be giving our attention to?!

Well, we can attend to anything, really. But the body is supreme. This is why I promote body-based meditation practices, as well as movement practices like Qigong that cultivate bodily awareness.

The thinking mind is typically just too damn fast to use as the primary object of our attention. Mental phenomena can be elusive and deceptive. And the stuff of the outside world has the tendency to seduce us, so that’s not ideal for attention practice either. It’s the body that’s best.

Through our lived experience of our bodies—through our “felt sense”—we can stabilize our attention. Through the body, we feel the immediacy of the river that runs through us. We can start to flow with the river instead of fighting it. We can start to let go—let go of our fixed ideas, our acquired habits, our resistance to the unfolding.

***

Can you remember experiencing moments—even if very fleeting—where you’ve gotten out of your own way? Moments of deep listening, of openness? Moments of allowing for your own flourishing and/or the flourishing of those around you?

Take a sec to soak up the memory of any experience like this; really savor it, and notice what happens in your body as you do that.

***

When we deepen our attentive capacities and “step back” from our meddling tendencies, we start to unwind our many tangles; we tap into larger currents of aliveness and well-being; and we create space for intentions that are aligned with our highest good, as well as the highest good of others. We make the most of our waves.

This is a challenge, no doubt. It’s one that I’m very much grappling with alongside you. But it’s also our birthright.

So, the next time you plop down for some quiet time, I invite you to explore the difference between attention and intention. Play with loosening your grip on the many intentions (the many doings) that arise and see if you can tend to the soil of attention. Try to soak your body with your awareness, like a sponge soaking up water.

Through attention, wise intentions sprout forth; virtue (De) takes hold; and non-interfering (Wu Wei) becomes a feature of our unfolding (Dao).