When we say that something is without purpose, that’s a put-down phrase. We say, “Well, there’s no future in it. What’s the use?” You know? We say, “What’s the use?” And we need very much to realize that that question reflects our insanity. What’s the future in it? What’s the use? The joy for the Taoist is that things have no use, and the future is not important.
There is no notion in the Taoist philosophy—or one might almost say in Chinese philosophy as a whole, for this certainly includes Confucianism—no notion whatsoever of the world as responding to a boss. So the body, in other words, does not have in it a ruling organ. Its order is the consequence or the operation of every part of it existing together simultaneously, arising mutually. There is no governor.
You have to find out that there is nothing that you do as a source and cause of action separate from everything else. When you know that—that there is no separate acting “you”—then there is no need to try to relax.