No thought, no action, no movement, total stillness: only thus can one manifest the true nature and law of things from within and unconsciously, and at last become one with heaven and earth.
LaoziThe leader is a teacher who succeeds without taking credit. And, because credit is not taken, credit is received.
LaoziMuch knowledge will corrupt the heart,/When partly understood,/And so the people grow too smart,/But neither wise nor good.
LaoziA good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can't tell the dancer from the dance. It happens when we trust the intelligence of the universe in the same way that an athlete or a dancer trusts the superior intelligence of the body.
Laozi