People nowadays embrace minimalism as a fashion, but for Taoists, it possesses deep philosophical value. It constitutes the preferred method for aligning oneself with the Tao, namely, by discarding what does not work, and by pursuing what does.
Lao-Tzu enunciated the principle of minimalism in chapter 48 of the Tao Te Ching: “In our pursuit of knowledge, we gain something each day, but in our pursuit of the Tao, we must also let go of something each day.”
The path to the Tao requires us to drop contradictions, false beliefs and false allegiances each day. We need to discard ideas and habits that are draining our energies. By doing so, we will free up space in our mind and time in our schedule.
I must underline the use of the terms “let go,” “discard” or “drop” in translations of chapter 48 of the Tao Te Ching. Those are hundred percent active verbs: the subject decides to throw away elements that have become counterproductive.
Chuang-Tzu and the wind
Chuang-Tzu illustrated the meaning of minimalism in one of his stories. I’m going to retell his story, but adapting the tone and pace to modern literary standards:
Once upon a time, a man wanted to learn how to use the wind. He studied it every day for hours on end, taking very detailed notes. He meticulously wrote down all the temperature and rain patterns, and tried to find correlations.
Years passed by, and the man continued accumulating more and more data about the wind. He expected that, one day, he would be able to predict the wind direction and draw large benefits from his research.
While he was conducting research on the riverbank, a group of children arrived, carrying a primitive boat that they had built by nailing pieces of wood together. Their boat had a crooked mast and a makeshift sail.
Ignoring the man, the children placed their boat on the river, boarded it, and started to turn the sail in all directions, until it caught wind and the boat began to move.
As the boat sailed away, the man realized that his approach was too complicated. He had been wasting his energy and time instead of adopting a simple, hands-on approach.
For Chuang-Tzu, minimalism is not about renouncing one’s possessions, and embracing poverty, deprivation or self-denial. Taoist minimalism is about practicality: we discard the useless and replace it by something better.
The purpose of Taoist minimalism
Taoist minimalism is also about speed and reactivity. If we carry less weight, we can advance faster. If we concentrate on a few areas, we can identify emerging opportunities and seize them quickly.
Similarly, minimalism enables us to identify problems while they are still small and address them without delay. Only if we remain focused can we increase our skills in a particular field, and reduce our reaction time to problems.
In Chapter 63 of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tzu exhorts us to confront problems while they are still small and manageable. If we wait too long, problems can become overwhelming, too big to solve or run away from them.
The Taoist strong preference for minimalism has nothing to do with the Christian praise for poverty and humility. Neither Augustine (354-430) nor Tomas of Aquinas (1225-1274) came up with prescriptions for minimalism. Their world-view lacks the practical bend inherent in Taoism.
Neither does a medieval Christian lifestyle match the Taoist concept of minimalism. Benedict of Nursia (480-547) wrote a “Regula Monachorum” to govern monastic lifestyle, but Yang-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu and Lao-Tzu would have refused to abide by Benedict’s detailed prescriptions.
The purpose of Taoist minimalism is the acquisition of high skills in the art of living, in one’s profession, and in the way we interact with other people. The outcome of Taoist minimalism should be an elevated enjoyment of life, not restrictions for the sake of restrictions.
Taoist minimalism and Wu Wei
Chapter 3 of the Tao Te Ching defines the ultimate goal of Taoist minimalism: to do less, practise Wu Wei (the non-action principle), and still get things done, so that “everything falls into place.”
In terms of modern learning psychology, the objective of a minimalist lifestyle is to acquire unconscious competence. By discarding the useless and increasing the worthy, we will grow in wisdom each day. We will get things done faster, more cost- effectively, and more smoothly.
Ancient Taoists used to compare wisdom with archery. The inexperienced archer overthinks and makes it too complicated. He tries to tense his arch perfectly and aim perfectly, taking the wind into account, but when he releases his arrow, it misses the target.
In contrast, an experienced archer doesn’t need to think long and will adjust his actions automatically. He will proceed faster and more smoothly, hitting the target with his arrows, while the inexperienced archer is still thinking of what to do.
Taoist minimalism is profoundly purposeful. A practitioner must decide each day which habits to discard and which ones to keep. The improvement process is bound to compound over time until philosophical mastery is achieved.
Chuang-Tzu recounted stories that illustrate the purposeful element in minimalism. His stories convey the idea of keeping our goals, but constantly improve our methods.
In one Taoist story, a boatman lost his ship because he kept doing what he had always done, unaware that the conditions had changed. Although his lifestyle was simple, his mentality proved too rigid to qualify as minimalist.
Without flexibility, minimalism soon becomes unworkable, unaffordable, and painful. It loses the connection to its purpose and becomes a senseless imposition. Instead of virtue, it grows into self-chastisement for no good reason.
Taoist minimalism and George Simenon
The literary craft of Belgian author George Simenon (1903-1989) constitutes my favourite example of Taoist minimalism. Simenon devoted ten years to writing pulp fiction, about two hundred books, before he regarded his style sufficiently simple to publish books under his own name.
Year after year, he cultivated extreme simplicity in his plots, characterisation and dialogues. He reduced his sentences to the bare minimum, editing out unnecessary words, and making his prose delightful to read.
Simenon’s own lifestyle was as purposefully minimalist as his literary works. He did not live in poverty, but discarded all elements that distracted him from his work. At one point in his life, he was living on a boat, travelling the canals of France.
As the boat sailed, Simenon sat down to type his next novel, which he would complete fairly quickly. Sometimes, he would write a complete novel from beginning to end just in a couple of weeks, making it an enormously prolific author.
Simenon never professed allegiance to Taoism. I don’t know if he had ever read the works of Lao-Tzu, Yang-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu or other Taoist philosophers, but his biography contains a vast array of lessons which ancient Taoists masters would have surely endorsed.
If you are interested in putting effective insights into daily practice, I recommend my book titled “Rational living, rational working.”