Actors, musicians, dancers, and other artists understand what it means to be fully present.
Whether acting in the moment, playing in the groove, or being in the body, an artist continually rehearses and practices toward that moment when they can be completely focused on what they are doing. Words, notes, and movement come without effort--all other distractions fall away. This is defined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as the "state of flow."
In Taoism it is known as wu-wei, which means "do without doing."
The two principle texts of Taoism are the Tao te Ching and the Chuang Tzu. The former expresses abstract concepts of Taoism through poetry, while the latter is full of stories that illustrate the Taoist "natural" way of things. Chapter 19 (Mastering Life) of the Chuang Tzu tells the story of the bell stand maker Ch'ing. His work was so masterful that people began to think that it was the work of gods or spirits. When asked how he could accomplish such mastery, he replied:
"I am only a craftsman - how would I have any art? There is one thing, however. When I am going to make a bell stand, I never let it wear out my energy. I always fast in order to still my mind. When I have fasted for three days, I no longer have any thought of congratulations or rewards, of titles or stipends. When I have fasted for five days, I no longer have any thought of praise or blame, of skill or clumsiness. And when I have fasted for seven days, I am so still that I forget I have four limbs and a form and body. By that time, the ruler and his court no longer exist for me. My skill is concentrated and all outside distractions fade away. After that, I go into the mountain forest and examine the Heavenly nature of the trees. If I find one of superlative form, and I can see a bell stand there, I put my hand to the job of carving; if not, I let it go. This way I am simply matching up `Heaven' with `Heaven.'"*
Many years ago I was riding home from work on the motorcycle from Berkeley to San Francisco. There is a very peculiar onramp to the freeway that has an intersection where no one in their right mind would turn left. Two 5-ton dump trucks in the right lane of two onramp lanes were on their way to the Oakland shipyard, and apparently discovered that they were going in the wrong direction. So one of them turned left in front of me. That truck was ahead of me by a few yards, the second was parallel to me. I had no place to go.
Tachypsychia is the term for that sensation of time slowing down. Despite hard braking, I was keenly aware that I was going to crash. So I aimed for the softest part of the truck, which was the fiberglass cab, let go of the brakes, and let myself relax. This was what I had learned years ago from both Tai Chi and the practice of falling in stage combat. Slamming into the truck I bounced off the bike and onto the ground, coming away reasonably unharmed except for the sizable bruise that developed later from chest to hip. If I had tightened up to brace for impact, I would have broken more than a few bones; it was that moment of letting go into the flow that made the difference. Focus, concentration, and training to be in the flow are all part of the practice of wu-wei.
Act without doing, and nothing will be left undone.
-Tao Te Ching, Ch. 37.
* The Complete works of Chuang Tzu. Trans. Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. p. 205.