Daoism is a Chinese wisdom tradition whose foundational texts include the Dao De Jing of Laozi. “Der SINN, den man ersinnen kann, / ist nicht der ewige SINN.” — the SINN that can be thought out is not the eternal SINN (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 1; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 3). So the Dao De Jing opens in Richard Wilhelm’s translation, which renders the word Dao as SINN, meaning. The next two lines read: “The name that can be named / is not the eternal name.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 1; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 3) According to Wilhelm, the whole metaphysics of the book is built on an intuition “that is inaccessible to strictly conceptual fixing,” which Laozi designates only in a “makeshift” way with the word Dao (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. XIV). One can read the opening of the Dao De Jing as marking the limit of a kind of thinking that wants to bring everything under a concept.
#The Dao — A Word Beyond the Concept
According to Richard Wilhelm, the Chinese word Dao starts from the meaning “way” and widens to “direction,” “state,” then “reason,” “truth”; he considers SINN the translation that does most justice to the Chinese word in its various meanings (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. XIV). Laozi himself says in the twenty-fifth chapter: “I do not know its name. / I designate it as SINN.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 25; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 26) Of the SINN, the fourteenth chapter says that one looks for it and does not see it, one grasps for it and does not seize it (cf. Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 14; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 15). Wilhelm sums up: “The SINN is in all things, but it is not itself a thing.” (Wilhelm, 1952, p. XX) In today’s language, Dao can be read as the living order of reality, which is not itself an object.
For the SINN, according to Wilhelm, Laozi frequently uses the image of water throughout the work (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. 9). The eighth chapter says: “The goodness of water is to benefit all beings without strife. / It dwells in places that all people despise. / Therefore it is close to the SINN.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 8; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 9) Another image from nature is the root: the countless beings develop, yet each turns back to its root, and this turning back Laozi calls stillness (cf. Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 16; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 17). According to Wilhelm, Laozi was probably half a century older than Confucius, so that his birth falls at the end of the 7th century BCE (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. IV). The Dao De Jing comprises 81 short sections; according to Wilhelm, the division is not original, and only the two main parts, on the SINN and on LIFE (LEBEN), appear to be very old (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. VII). The most important Daoist writers of the pre-Christian era, according to Wilhelm, already quote by far the greater part of these sections (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. VI). The book’s language is terse and often paradoxical. The seventy-eighth chapter ends with the line: “True words are as if reversed.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 78; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 82) Wilhelm renders it in modern terms: the truth often sounds paradoxical (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, pp. 82–83). The twenty-ninth chapter says: “The world is a spiritual thing / that one may not handle. / Whoever acts spoils it. / Whoever holds on loses it.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 29; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 30) In today’s terms, one might say: the world is not an object at our disposal.
In the thirty-eighth chapter, according to Richard Wilhelm, Laozi stands “in the sharpest opposition to Confucianism”: love, justice and morality, its highest concepts, are denied their value there (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. 43). Where Confucius cultivates social order through rites, duties and forms of relationship, Laozi says: “The great SINN was abandoned: / so there were morality and duty.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 18; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 19) According to Wilhelm’s explanation, as long as everything is in order, these virtues are so general and self-evident that they do not stand out (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. 19). Between Laozi and Confucianism, according to Richard Wilhelm, there is in other matters complete agreement, for example in valuing non-action highly as a principle of government; the opposition is irreconcilable in how they value Li, morality and rules of propriety, which stands at the centre for Confucius and in which Laozi sees only a symptom of degeneration (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. X). In the fifty-seventh chapter, Laozi cites the word of a sage: “I do not act, and the people transform of their own accord.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 57; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 61)
#Wu Wei — The Power of Not Forcing
Wu Wei means, literally, non-action; Richard Wilhelm speaks of Laozi’s “emphasis on non-action” (Wilhelm, 1952, p. XVIII). He explains: “This non-action is not inactivity, but only absolute receptivity to what works itself out in the individual from that metaphysical ground.” (Wilhelm, 1952, p. XVIII) Of the sage (Wilhelm: der Berufene), the sixty-fourth chapter says that he furthers the natural course of things and does not dare to act (cf. Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 64; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 68). Laozi writes, in an English rendering of Richard Wilhelm’s translation: “The SINN is eternally without action, / and nothing remains unwrought.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 37; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 38) The seventy-eighth chapter says that nothing in the whole world is softer than water, and yet nothing equals it in the way it assails the hard; that the weak overcomes the strong and the soft overcomes the hard, everyone on earth knows, but no one is able to act on it (cf. Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 78; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 82).
What drives action? For today’s decisions, non-action can be read as a distinction: between the impulse to act that arises from the matter itself and the nervous need for control that stems from one’s own restlessness. In the seminars we work with this distinction — between the impulse to act that comes from the matter and the nervous need for control that disguises itself as responsibility.
On morality and forethought, the thirty-eighth chapter says: “This morality is the meagreness of loyalty and faith / and the beginning of confusion. / Forethought is the semblance of the SINN / and the beginning of folly.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 38; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 43) And the fifty-seventh chapter: “The more laws and orders are paraded, / the more thieves and robbers there are.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 57; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 61) Laozi describes a truly great ruler as one of whom the people merely know that he is there; when the works are done, the people all think: “We are self-reliant.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 17; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 18) Harald Gutherz, whose essay “Soziologisches” (Sociological Remarks) is printed in Wilhelm’s edition, reads this section as describing an effect whose cause is a ruler who preserves the SINN and therefore does not act (cf. Gutherz, in: Wilhelm, 1952, p. XXVI).
#Zhuangzi — The Use of the Useless
Zhuangzi is, according to Richard Wilhelm, “the most brilliant writer of Daoism”; he lived in the 4th century BCE and based his teachings throughout on the doctrines of the Dao De Jing (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. VI). In the fourth book he tells the parable of the old oak: a carpenter walks past a huge, ancient tree without paying it any heed. Nothing can be made from its wood. But precisely because it is of no use, it has been able to reach so great an age (cf. Zhuangzi, Book IV, 4, “The Old Oak”; Wilhelm, 1912, pp. 33–34). Book IV closes with the thought that everyone knows how useful it is to be useful, and no one knows how useful it is to be useless (cf. Zhuangzi, Book IV, 8; Wilhelm, 1912, p. 36).
In a dream, the oak appears to the carpenter and explains that it has long taken pains to become entirely useless, and that this is now of the greatest use to it; it asks whether it would ever have reached this stature if it were of any use (cf. Zhuangzi, Book IV, 4; Wilhelm, 1912, p. 34). The cultivated trees that bear fruit and berries, by contrast, endanger their own lives through their gifts, in its words, and perish halfway (cf. ibid.). Richard Wilhelm summarizes the tree parables of the fourth book this way: the trees of the fourth and fifth sections, by being unfit for common use, knew how to preserve themselves from early destruction; in the sixth section, the usefulness of the useful trees brings about their downfall (cf. Wilhelm, 1912, p. 26). In today’s language, the parable can be read as an objection to a way of thinking that measures everything by its use; the carpenter himself says at the end that it is quite wrong to want to apply the ordinary standards to this tree (cf. Zhuangzi, Book IV, 4; Wilhelm, 1912, p. 34).
Richard Wilhelm calls the story of the cook in the third book a “parable about the effects of compliant adaptation to the laws of nature” (Wilhelm, 1912, p. 22). In the parable of the cook of Prince Wen Hui, the cook follows the natural lines as he carves cattle, and after nineteen years his knife has an edge as if freshly sharpened (cf. Zhuangzi, Book III, 2, “The Cook”; Wilhelm, 1912, p. 23). He himself says that what he loves is the SINN, and that this is more than skill (cf. ibid.). When he comes to a joint, he sees the difficulties, takes careful heed, and proceeds very slowly (cf. ibid.). At the end, the prince says that he has heard the words of a cook and learned how to nurture life (cf. ibid.).
Gwendolin Kirchhoff applies a passage from the tenth book of the Zhuangzi to power. In an English rendering of Richard Wilhelm’s German translation, it reads: “As long as the sages do not die out, the great robbers will not cease.” (Zhuangzi, Book X, 3; Wilhelm, 1912, p. 69) Whoever steals a buckle, the same passage continues, is executed; whoever steals a kingdom becomes a prince (cf. Zhuangzi, Book X, 3; Wilhelm, 1912, p. 69). In her conversation with Elisa Gratias (TransitionTV, 2026), Kirchhoff renders the passage freely: a great robber is someone who robs a state, and he becomes a prince, or, as she adds, an oligarch or something along those lines; this, she says, is something we do see (cf. Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 00:49:11–00:49:52). Her reading of the passage: “But everything that is codified knowledge made available externally, which runs the state, can be taken over by whoever robs the state.” (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 00:50:05) That, in her account, is why Zhuangzi advises against disclosing so much (cf. ibid., 00:50:14–00:50:20). Looked at more closely, she says, Zhuangzi is concerned above all with standardizations and norms; a written law she calls a kind of rational decision automaton (cf. ibid., 00:50:50–00:51:04): “The moment I have a decision automaton, that is, a written law, every oligarch can evade it or make use of it.” (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 00:51:07) Against this she sets directness: “Out of direct contact with the phenomena, it suddenly becomes simple, by not first referring to something formalized that lies in front of me.” (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 00:51:36)
Laozi places the soft and weak above the firm and strong: “For the firm and strong belongs to death, / the soft and weak belongs to life.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 76; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 80) Wilhelm points to the passages in which LIFE (LEBEN) is described “as something feminine, purely receptive” (cf. Wilhelm, 1952, p. XVIII).
#Why Leave a Gap?
The Daodejing answers in its ninth chapter, which Richard Wilhelm titles Selbstbeschränkung (self-restraint), with two images: “Wanting to hold something while filling it to overflowing: / that is not worth the effort. / Wanting to handle something while always keeping it sharp: / that cannot be preserved for long.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 9; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 10) Wilhelm explains the first as the “image of a bowl of water that must not be overfilled without its overflowing,” and the second with the German proverb Allzu scharf macht schartig: too sharp turns jagged.
Gwendolin Kirchhoff comes to these images in a conversation with Elisa Gratias for TransitionTV (2026). Just before, she says: “Life is not perfect and does not have to be perfect.” (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 01:04:19) It does not have to be flawless; something must, and may, always remain, and that holds in every area of life (cf. ibid., 01:04:22–01:04:29). “A great deal of pressure always arises when something is supposed to be brought to an end.” (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 01:04:29) Immediately afterwards she cites two sayings from Daoism: the image of the knife you whet too much, so that the blade dulls sooner, and the image of the cup into which you pour too much water, so that it overflows (cf. ibid., 01:04:33–01:04:46). Her own sentence follows: “That you always leave a gap.” (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 01:04:46)
And further: “Say less than you could say. Do less than you could do.” (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 01:04:49) “Always a little less. Always leave room to breathe. And let the mistakes stand, too.” (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 01:04:53–01:04:58) Her example is her own work: when she watches clips of herself and notices that she stammered or spoke imprecisely, that is, on the one hand, her pursuit of excellence, and on the other she wants to let the imperfection stand (cf. ibid., 01:04:58–01:05:18). “Why does everything have to be perfect?” (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 01:05:18)
#What Is the Course of Things in Chinese Thought?
The course of things, in the Chinese ideas as Gwendolin Kirchhoff recounts them in a conversation with Elisa Gratias about Homer’s Odyssey (TransitionTV, 2026), is continual transformation: yin and yang, as the primal polarity, alternate constantly, day becomes night, night becomes day, and nothing stays (cf. Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 00:48:29–00:48:45). Kirchhoff comes to these Chinese ideas about fate and the course of things in connection with the question of what comes next, what counts as fortune and what as misfortune (cf. ibid., 00:47:43–00:48:21). As with the Greeks, she says, the Chinese hold the idea that this cannot be controlled (cf. ibid., 00:48:21–00:48:30). The noble person adapts to this, she says: he “withdraws when it is time to withdraw and steps forward when it is time to step forward,” goes along with the course of things, which is greater than he is, and does not try to set himself against it; this, she adds, is putting it very briefly (Kirchhoff, 2026, TransitionTV, 00:48:47–00:49:08).
#The Question of the Right Moment
Wisdom orients both action and non-action; the wise response can lie in acting or in letting be. According to Richard Wilhelm, the I Ging inspired Laozi to some of his deepest aphorisms, and Confucius, too, gave himself over to reflecting on it (cf. Wilhelm, 1924/1987, pp. 18–19). One of its hexagrams is called “Waiting”; Wilhelm explains it with the rain that comes in its own time: “One cannot force it, but must wait for it.” (Wilhelm, 1924/1987, p. 42) The eighth chapter of the Dao De Jing also speaks of the right moment: “In moving, goodness shows itself in the right time.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 8; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 9) The sixty-fourth chapter says: “One must work on what is not yet there. / One must order what is not yet in confusion.” (Laozi, Daodejing, Ch. 64; Wilhelm, 1952, p. 68)
Read through non-action and the right moment, Daoism is less a catalogue of instructions for action than a trust that an order holds which does not have to be produced.
#Sources
- Kirchhoff, G. & Gratias, E. (2026). «Das Schicksal ist größer als wir» Gwendolin Walter-Kirchhoff über Christopher Nolan und das Leben (“Fate is greater than we are”: Gwendolin Walter-Kirchhoff on Christopher Nolan and life) [Video]. TransitionTV, YouTube, 18 September 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smlQFizE8Lg All times refer to this TransitionTV version; the Manova version Die Odyssee (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjtervR5tR4) has different times.
- Laozi (1952). Tao Te King — Das Buch des Alten vom Sinn und Leben (Tao Te Ching: The Book of Meaning and Life). Translated by Richard Wilhelm. Düsseldorf/Cologne. Text from zeno.org; English renderings of Wilhelm’s German are ours. Contains: Gutherz, H., Soziologisches (Sociological Remarks), pp. XXIII–XXXI.
- Wilhelm, R. (Trans.) (1987). I Ging: Das Buch der Wandlungen (The I Ching: The Book of Changes; 14th ed.; first published Jena 1924). Cologne: Diederichs. English renderings of Wilhelm’s German are ours.
- Zhuangzi (1912). Das wahre Buch vom südlichen Blütenland (The True Book of the Southern Flowering Land). Translated and annotated by Richard Wilhelm. Scan on archive.org.
- Wilhelm, R. (1926). The Soul of China. Berlin: Reimer Hobbing.
