Ancient Icons in 2019 - Flow

Most of us have experienced a time when we were deeply involved in trying to reach a goal, or an activity that is challenging but well suited to our skills, and experienced a joyful state called “flow.” Some of us may find still greater happiness by experiencing “flow” in working towards long-term, meaningful goals.

The Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi proposed that happiness is nothing but Wu Wei (no contrived action) that is, using one’s natural abilities and intuition to flow with one’s environment. When you are fully engaged with what you are doing, you begin to act effortlessly, and your whole mindset changes from that of fear and avoidance to that of engagement and openness.

But if you are like me, reading about the philosophy is one thing, but applying it in my day-to-day living is another. If I tried to distil down flow to its essence in an experiential sense it could be three core principles:

1. Acceptance of your life.

2. Following your breath to find peace.

3. Opening up a smile to enable possibility.

This might manifest itself in notions and actions like:

• With care, I aid those who are extended expressions of my nature.

• Be true to me.

• Connect to the world as I want to be treated.

• Connect to those outside my nature with decisive action.

• To those unwilling to accept me for my true nature, no action is required: just silently let them be themselves as I remain myself.

• I own nothing; I am merely a passing custodian of items outside of my nature.

So, based on this ancient wisdom, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I'm doing, work very slowly, and apply my skills with the greatest subtlety, until the outcome emerges. I stand there holding my polishing rag and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I put my rag away. In the broader scheme of living, my “polishing rag” shows up in many forms.