Paul McCartney – Blackbird Live
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
Now,Black bird singing in the dead of night
Won’t you take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
You were only waiting for this moment to be free,
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.
The Wisdom Of Non-Action
In the writings of the old Taoist teachers, there is a concept called Wu Wei, which is the notion of non-action. Initially, it’s hard to understand.
Wu Wei teaches that through non-action, the sage gains every thing — that in quietude, meditation, and emotional serenity, the sage gains a knowledge of the God-Force, of the eternal Tao. And in that eternity, he or she has everything, so there is no need to struggle or push to gain respect and material things.
In the modern environment, Taoist simplicity doesn’t work so well. We usually have to maintain ourselves and pay the rent; we have to participate in modern experiences that were not available in 500 B.C. when the Tao was written.
We have incarnated at this particular time to experience the wonders of the modern world. We need those experiences in order to grow.
So non-action, in the modern context, needs to be slightly modified.
We can take the spirit of the Taoist Wu Wei, however, and put that into our life as a further consolidation. Wu Wei is effortless flow.
The concept becomes obvious when we compare the difference between striving and working. Striving is leaning emotionally into a goal, a target—yearning for it, feeling pressured by your lack of it—tearing around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to get it. That’s striving.
Working is moving relentlessly toward your target, one step at a time, in an organized and disciplined way.
We can see Wu Wei, also, in the difference between effort and struggle. In my book “Life Was Never Meant to Be a Struggle” I discuss the fact that many people consider struggle to be honorable. It’s a bit silly, really. There is nothing at all honorable about struggling.
Usually, if you’re struggling, there’s something wrong. There is a big difference between struggle and effort.
Struggle is action laced with negative emotion—struggling to finish the job, struggling to qualify, struggling to be accepted, struggling to win people over, struggling to make ends meet.
Effort is a natural part of human existence. You can’t walk to the store without effort—you will burn calories getting there, buying your groceries, and coming home. Effort is natural
Struggle, however, is effort laced with emotion. It is not the minimal action and flow of Wu Wei.
If you find yourself struggling, immediately look to see what the underlying emotion is. Generally, you’ll find that you’re struggling because the goal you’re trying to achieve isn’t coming fast enough.
For example, you might have a certain financial commitment that requires money to show up quickly.
Or you might be struggling because your actions are incorrect.
Sometimes you’re trying to win people over or convince them of something, and they don’t want to be won over or convinced.
Sometimes struggle comes from having too many things to do—meaning that your life isn’t organized. Or struggle can come from the frustration of having placed a goal into a particular time frame, only to find that life denies you.
As you learn to consolidate your silent power, you will learn to embrace Wu Wei.
It is really patience and flow—moving away from resistance and toward simplicity, relentlessly moving toward your goal with awareness, adjusting your actions as need be—moving without emotion and without exerting yourself too much.
Stay within your balance and capabilities, and trust the Universal Law (the Tao) to bring to you those things you need.
Non-action is the ability to delegate, to be patient, to wait for things to unfold naturally. It’s the ability to perceive where your strongest path lies.
That isn’t so difficult to do.
Review your options in a meditation, and decide which way feels the strongest. Act on your feelings, not only on your intellect
Wu Wei is manifest in the ability to turn back. Retreat can sometimes be the most powerful tool in your bag of tricks.
It’s the ability to walk away when things aren’t right, the ability to leave a relationship if it doesn’t work, the ability to say “no” when people are trying to suck you into actions that are degrading or when things don’t fit into your ideas of spirituality, of proper action, of goodness.
So, Wu Wei is accepting life and not forcing it. It is being aware of the ebb and flow of the seasons, aware of the spirituality of all things, aware that in the great abundance of the God-Force, there is no
time.
It is knowing when to act, and not acting until you know. You can wait forever if you have to. You are eternal.
Wu Wei is being content with what you are, with who you are, and with what you have now.
It’s knowing that abundance, and experiences and relationships of real
worth, come only when and if you’re settied. When you’re balanced, the universe provides; more will always be there. But Wu Wei is the act of not pushing, not forcing.
Be the silent, controlled person who is moving relentlessly toward freedom and away from restriction—toward your goals, one step at a time, in an organized, patient way.
Wu Wei is also the ability to get around the blocks you experience as you try to materialize ideas and goals.
When life doesn’t want to dance to your tune, start by asking yourself these questions: Am I in the right place? Am I too early or too late? Am I going too fast? Do I need more patience?
Do I need time to consolidate, to create an energy within myself that is compatible with my goal? Am I trying for something that’s too far in the distance. Do I need to set a goal closer to where I am now?
Ask yourself: Is what I want appropriate? Does my plan infringe on other peopie? Does it require them to be something they don’t want to be, to do things they don’t want to do? If I’m involving other people, what’s in it for them? (Maybe the resistance comes from the fact that you’ve forgotten to include them.)
Have I looked after and honored everybody—made sure they are happy and ready to perform? Is what I want self-indulgent? Will it assist me in growing and becoming a better person, in achieving a more fulfilling life? Or am I just indulging myself?
Sometimes the deeper spiritual part of you, the infinite self within, protects you from disaster. You’ll head off, trying to achieve something that the inner spiritual you, the deeper subconscious self, doesn’t actually want. So it will make sure you arrive too late, or the person you seek will not be there, or the check bounces, and things generally don’t work.
If things really are not working, and they turn out to be a mess, you have to think, Hey, is this because of something deep inside me—do I really want what I think I want? Am I committed to the idea or not?
What are the consequences, obligations, and energies involved? Am I investing too much of myself in the idea?
Perhaps it won’t mean much to me when I get it.
I’m sure you’ve had the experience of going for something and getting it, then realizing that the prize wasn’t worth the energy you expended; it was a disappointment.
So be careful that you don’t hurtle off up some path just to prove what a hotshot you are, without thinking through your actions, whether they actually do anything for you.
The other question to ask yourself is: Are my actions powerful and appropriate?
A few small, powerful actions are worth a hundred hours of diddling about.
There’s a school of thought that says: When faced with an obstacle, whack your head against it until the thing breaks. Then move to the next obstacle, and whack it with whatever part of your skull still
remains. I’m not keen on that idea; it seems to lack finesse.
When you’re faced with an obstacle, step back and take a long, hard look at what it is telling you. More often than not, you can adapt and walk around it.
Sometimes you have to wait while you raise your energy enough to flow over the obstacle effortlessly.
Don’t whack your head against it. Stop. Get inside your power. Plot how you’re going to get around it, how you’re going to materialize the sales you need, for example, and how you can more effectively present
your information to people.
No, don’t use your head to power yourself forward, by whacking it on things.
Instead, use it silently, to feel out where your strongest path lies. That is silent power. From non-action, let’s go to the silent, subtle nature of feelings.
Excerpts from, “Silent Power” – Stuart Wilde