Doing by not-doing
*) English not checked
Not-doing is not the same as doing nothing. The difference is easy to explain, but difficult to understand. Let me first explain the not-doing side.
If I write the letter 'A', on white paper with a black pen, then I need two ingredients: white and black. We can see the letter 'A' due to the two colors. Which color is more important? You can say: “the white color”, because there is more white then black on the paper. But that is nonsense. One is not more important that the other: without one of them you can't read the letter.That is the same with everything: something can only exist by grace of what it is not. If everything around you does not exist, you don't exist.
In the same way 'doing' cannot be without 'not-doing'. Both exist at the same time. Do nothing is nothing: not doing and not not-doing. The effect of doing nothing is nothing. The effect of not-doing can be huge.
Doing by not-doing is a creative act. If you do by not-doing, you change something, not by doing, but by not-doing. You make the letter 'A' readable by being the white part.
A surgeon is doing by cutting one's body, for instance in case of a worn-out hip. A general practitioner (GP) can sometimes be helpful by doing not-doing. In case of the worn-out hip he can advice to move a lot, or to go to a physiotherapist, or go to the surgeon. But he himself does not-doing. If the patient leaves the consulting room, nothing happened at the hip. The GP is not-doing anything at the hip. That does not mean that he did nothing.
Many thousand years ago the Asian philosopher, Lao Zi, wrote:
'So do by not-doing; through not-doing, nothing remain undone.'
This is the great challenge for everyone who wants to do good for other people: do it by not-doing, not by doing. Not-doing lets the full responsibility with the other, doing something for him deprives him from the possibility to do it by himself. After a while he will do nothing anymore.
Thirty spokes stabbing into a single hub,
but the wheel functions because of the center hole.
Clay is baked to make a pot,
but the function of the pot is in the empty capacity.
We make a home with openings for doors and windows,
and by the empty spaces the house is usable.
Indeed: using what is
is only possible by what not exists.
Kristofer Schipper: Lao Zi, Het boek van de Tao en de innerlijke kracht, uitgeverij Augustus, Amsterdam
Giving alms to a beggar is 'doing'. Not doing anything and walk on is doing nothing. Talking with him can be not-doing.
Socrates was a master of not-doing: asking the right question and let the other find the answer. Just like a midwife not give birth by herself.
Social development-work has to be a form of not-doing.