Act Without Forcing, Taste the Tasteless

answered by Laozi, Dao De Jing 63

기원전 6~4세기

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Kamome Diner (2006)

dir. Naoko Ogigami · Japan

In a foreign city, a diner opens its door quietly, without straining to draw customers. Is that unstraining an incompetent idleness, or does not-grasping make a warmth where people stay of their own accord?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

To a quiet life that grasps at nothing, do people gather on their own?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

爲無爲事無事味無味

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

Act by non-forcing, work at non-doing, taste the tasteless.

💡 TL;DR

Laozi urged doing the non-forced and tasting the plain.

📝The Classic Answers

Laozi urged doing the non-forced and tasting the plain. To one who opens a clean, quiet place without straining to draw customers, people come of their own accord, unsummoned. Not only loud effort accomplishes things. A life that quietly keeps its place and tends small things with care makes, precisely because it does not grasp, a warmth that lingers long. Before I strain to pull something toward me, I choose to learn the way of calmly opening my own place.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If you're straining to pull something toward you today, ease off and choose instead to calmly open your own place.

📖 Classic Source: Laozi, Dao De Jing 63. Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.