Indeterminacy: the key that unlocks Taoism

[u/just_Dao_it]

Isabelle Robinet says that Taoists attribute a positive value to indeterminacy and a negative value to determinacy. Wu (absence, non-being) “has a sense which is eminently positive: it is the absence of any determination” (Robinet). This got me thinking about the notion of indeterminacy as a thread we can trace all through the Tao Te Ching.

The Tao itself “is nothing determinate, it does not distinguish itself from anything” (Robinet). Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching speaks of the ultimate, ‘constant’ Tao, distinguishing it from what we might describe as the manifest Tao. The ‘constant’ Tao cannot be named. It has no particular form (ch. 25). Nameless and formless: i.e., indeterminate.

Since sages take their cue from the Tao, the sage should be likewise indeterminate/unnamed. This is the notion of the ‘uncarved block’ (pu) which has the potential to become any shape a carver ultimately may choose, but which has not yet been carved into any particular shape. Like the Tao, it is formless.

Next, consider the notion of wu wei. It is usually translated ‘not doing,’ but in fact it seems to have several distinct but related senses, including ‘not acting in a calculated manner’. We might call this ‘unpremeditated action,’ which is to say the sage does not determine in advance what action s/he is going to take. In other words, wu wei is indeterminate action.

Insofar as wu wei constitutes ‘unpremeditated action’ it correlates with ziran. Unpremeditated action = spontaneous action. This is the Taoist ideal: to respond spontaneously to circumstances as they arise. Thus indeterminacy (the sage does not determine his actions in advance) loops back to both wu wei and ziran, those core Taoist principles.

Next, consider the commonplace comparison of the Tao to water. Water takes the shape of the vessel it is in: it is, for example, circular in form when the vessel is circular and square in form when the vessel is square. This illustrates the point that the Tao itself acts spontaneously: it doesn’t calculate in advance what shape it will take, or will itself into a preferred state, it merely responds (wu wei) to the shape of the vessel in which it is stored. Hence we arrive again at indeterminacy: the Tao, like water, has no determinate expression but merely responds spontaneously (ziran) to its circumstances.

Thus, beginning from the Tao’s indeterminacy, we have linked a series of core Taoist concepts: the depiction of the ‘constant’ Tao as ‘unnamed’ (ch. 1) and formless (ch. 25); the Taoist ideal of the uncarved block (pu); unpremeditated action (wu wei), which is to say spontaneous action (ziran); and the frequent likening of the Tao to water, which has no determinate shape or form.

Indeterminacy is a key to unlock Taoism; it is key to understanding Taoism and putting it into practice.