Doing by not Doing

One is never sure he understands aright the mystical experiences of another.  Especially those of a religion not his own.  Over more than a decade of engaging with Taoism I'm still not sure I understand.  The following paraphrase of Chuang Tzu from a fellow Christian (Thomas Merton) I find helpful in approaching the Taoist concept of "doing by not doing."

"The non-action of the wise man is not inaction.
It is not studied.  It is not shaken by anything.
The sage is quiet because he is not moved,
not because he wills to be quiet."

.....

"From emptiness comes the unconditioned.
From this, the conditioned, the individual things.
So from the sage's emptiness, stillness arises:
From stillness, action.  From action, attainment.
From their stillness comes their non-action, which is also action.
And is, therefore, their attainment.
For stillness is joy.  Joy is freedom from care
Fruitful in the long years.
Joy does all things without concern;
For emptiness, stillness, tranquility, tastelessness,
Silence and non-action
Are the root of all things."

The passage brings to mind my experience with Peck's community building exercises.  The quotes and concepts that follow are from The Different Drum.  In Peck's community model a group passes through four stages

• Psuedocommunity
• Chaos
• Emptiness
• Community

 "Chaos always centers around well-intentioned but misguided efforts to heal and convert."

"There are only two ways out of chaos....One is into organization-but organization is never community.  The only other way is into and through emptiness."

For Peck, emptiness in a group setting involves letting go of

• Expectations and Preconceptions
• Prejudices
• Ideology, Theology and Solutions
• The Need to Heal, Convert, Fix and Solve
• The Need to Control

"As a group moves into emptiness, a few of its members begin to share their own brokenness-their defeats, failures, doubts, fears, inadequacies and sins."

At the point when the group is struggling to understand what emptiness means here, the facilitators would offer a few hints or suggestions.  One of them is something to the effect of asking us to consider what it means to be silent until one is moved upon to speak.

"In this final stage a soft quietness descends.  It is a kind of peace.  The room is bathed in peace.  Then, quietly, a member begins to talk about herself.  She is being very vulnerable.  She is speaking of the deepest part of herself.  The group hangs on every word.  No one realized she was capable of such eloquence.
    When she is finished there is a hush.  It goes on a long time.  but it does not seem long.  There is no uneasiness in this silence.  Slowly, out of the silence, another member begins to talk.  He too is speaking very deeply, very personally, about himself."

From my perspective emptiness seems allied with Book of Mormon uses of the terms "humble," "humility," and "nothingness"  in the process of coming unto Christ.  Several intimate descriptions of how the quorum of the twelve operate seem eerily parallel to Peck's community.