The word Wuwei implies the absence of an action or the absence of doing something. Moon (2015) , further indicates that the word “Wuwei must depend on nothing, and this means it cannot depend on the motivation to do nondoing”(256). The word in many ancient Chinese schools of thought as well as in its ordinary uses is understood to mean Daoist or ideal. For instance, the word is translated by the Confucius’s spiritual autobiography in the Analects 2.4 to mean an effortless action. It is so because the word refers to what people avoid doing but to how something or operation runs. In this sense, the action is termed as Wuwei incase its unselfconscious, spontaneous, and perfectly efficacious.
The state of Wuwei is perfect peace and harmonious state. The term depicts the harmony that exists between the person's inner disposition and eternal environments. It depicts the state of peace a person has or the balance between the inner and outer self in an effortless manner. It depicts the state of harmony and strains less those individuals in heaven is perceived to have or enjoy. It thus implies that a person at this state possesses potency or virtue. According to Wang (2019), “Confucius believed that each human being is capable of being good, refined, and even great; but he differed from Daoists because he was convinced that a human being cannot achieve those qualities in isolation” (231). There is a difference in the manner at which the Daoist perceive the term Wuwei and how the Confucians perceive the term. In Daoism, for instance, everything is with nature, but with Confucianism, everything is not with nature naturally. Instead, it requires training.
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References
Moon, S. (2015). Wuwei (non-action) Philosophy and Actions: Rethinking ‘actions’ in school reform. Educational Philosophy and Theory , 47 (5), 455-473.
Wang, H. (2019). Wuwei, self-organization, and classroom dynamics. Educational Philosophy and Theory , 1-11.
