This is my attempt at a personal summary of Edward Slingerland’s book “Trying Not to Try: Ancient China, Modern Science and The Power of Spontaneity” (insert Amazon affiliate link here)

See the world in terms of the power and grace of spontaneity
“In the form and function of play, man’s consciousness that he is embedded in a sacred order of things finds its first, highest, and holiest expression.”
“Hot” (uninhibited, spontaneous) vs “cold” cognition

Wu-wei

Wu-wei as spontaneous flow, with the conscious mind stepping in during hiccups. The situational awareness is present in the background, ready to call on cold consciousness if needed.
Getting into flow: a small effort to switch selves, and then you flow. “You cannot attain absolute calmness of mind without any effort. You must make some effort, then forget about yourself in it.”
Spontaneity can be shaped first by cold cognition; you can make a spontaneous habit out of something. (× “A training is complete when it has become automatic, without thought or effort.”)
Social effectiveness is moving through the human world with ease and grace
- “Being in the world, but not of it.” (Bible)
- “If you want to be in front of the people, you must, in your actions, put yourself behind them. […] Because he does not contend with others, there is no one in the world who is able to contend with him.” “By putting themselves below, they end up on top.”
- “The sage has the outward physical appearance of a human being but lacks the human essence (vices). Because he looks like a human, he flocks together with other people. Lacking the human essence, though, he does not allow right and wrong to get to him.”
- Doing the opposite (e.g. the opposite of effort; or of what the other person is doing; interpersonally). Giving way in martial arts such that your adversary has nothing to push against. Wrong-footing.
- “The goal of the Zhuangzian sage is to empty his boat, so he can collide with others without arousing any animosity.”
Trying & Not Trying: both work, and it’s about switching back and forth.
Remaining relaxed and realizing it’s no big stakes.
- Otherwise, “by the time you start betting for gold, you’re completely petrified.”

Spontaneity and authenticity, heartfulness

× Don’t second-guess yourself; spontaneity in improvisation.
Effortless and unselfconscious behaviour acts like a window into our true character.
- Spontaneous behaviour is hard to fake, indicates that your behaviour is not precalculated, but that it is authentic and that you are being transparent. When acting spontaneously, people know you are being authentic, and automatically trust you.
- Meet somebody with their guards down in order to meet their real self, their selves without their cognitive control, “having relaxed into hot cognition”. In Chinese business banquets, “getting drunk is an act of mental disarmament”.
  - Alcohol suppresses the conscious mind and allows for more uninhibited (and open-hearted) exchanges.
    - In those spontaneous exchanges is the Beauty in life.
  - You meet one’s true personality when their defenses are down: when dancing, singing, drinking, playing.
Spontaneous people (or people embodying any particular paradigm) naturally encourage others around them to do the same (× “permission slip” in improvisation). People with “de” naturally relax people around them (the body feels safe, the person can be trusted.)
Spontaneity is life making things easier for you, and for everybody. (Transparency.) Life (lives) naturally get into order.
- Spontaneity is linked to and follows the Heavenly way; and naturally leads you in the right direction (since it is sacred.)
Self-confidence sends the signal that you are what you claim to be.
“INTERPERSONAL ANXIETY OR AWKWARDNESS — AN INABILITY TO ENTER WU-WEI AROUND OTHER PEOPLE”
- “The artificial, temporary suppression of our conscious mind given to us by intoxicants may, in some situations, be precisely the little jump start that we need to push through the paradox of wu-wei in social situations.” (Could also be dancing, etc.)
- Spontaneity as being natural

Life

“You need to apply fertilizer at the right times, weed when necessary, and ensure proper irrigation.”
- Identify small sprouts and nurture them. Remember them, remember the glimpses you’ve had.
A training is complete when it has become automatic, without thought or effort. (Habits.)
- Training × Wu-Wei ; cold cognition into hot cognition.
Make use of available resources: “The gentleman by birth is not different from other people — he is simply good at borrowing external things.” (Teachings, teachers)
- Learn from what past people have learned about life. “People with experience have, through careful trial and error, figured out the best place to cross the river and have left markers to help us find it.” “The accumulated wisdom of classics.”
Example of Dharma: the scribes doing the work. “These texts have been copied and recopied innumerable times by a series of unknown editors and scribes”
Act towards others as you would act towards yourself. Extend your behaviour.
Deal with people by letting them do their things: “The way to handle monkeys — human or otherwise — is just to let them have their way, if there is no harm in it, rather than insisting on one’s original plan. This is “going along with things.””
Re-pattern the way you understand and make sense of reality, and your model thereof: “The Zen master then answers with a non sequitur, trying to shake up the student’s conceptual framework.”
Analog vs Digital: Try and make memories and associations visceral and embodied, rather than purely abstract and conceptual.
Meditation retreats, trainings, process-based achievements: clear things you have done and experience you have acquired: “Expert meditators (defined as those who had at least ten thousand hours of meditation practice under their belts)”
Improving one’s sensory skills works best when comparing one’s intuition to that of an expert, and letting it feed back immediately.
Go beyond right and wrong and absolutes. People need different things (and at different times).
Meet people from humble or struggling walks of life, in developing countries, and learn from them, from simpler living: “Zhuangzi was hanging out in workshops and the kitchens — from which, as Mencius sniffed, the gentleman “keeps his distance” — and he was impressed by what he saw. This world revealed to him artisans and butchers, ferrymen and draftsmen, whose effortless ease and responsiveness to the world could serve as a model for his disaffected fellow intellectuals.”
Without the narrative unity from the ego, we would have no idea who we are, where we’ve been or where we’re headed. Our ega ties it all together, makes sense of our life and makes a story of it, our personal narrative.