Wu Wei is the Chinese concept that behavior can be the result of nature, an effect without a personal causal agent acting in self- interest. It refers to the paradoxical way of doing things after losing the despotic, conscious doer. Wu Wei is behavior originating from a mental state of harmony with all things; not motivated by the rewards or outcomes such behavior will secure. It’s innocent of the desire for compensation in life or for status after death even in the performance of virtuous acts. Wu wei is to surrender to deep nature.

Martial artists who have trained their active selves to feel comfortable and confident enough to stand aside may find their behavior resulting from a transcendent power, one that’s above right and wrong, but they get no credit for it, having done nothing but lose to get it. This resulting state is called “Grace,” and is defined by the paradox of gaining by losing.

“...Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not you must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess,
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.” --T.S. Eliot