Practices

Still sitting: Sit quietly each morning, following the breath without controlling it. The instruction is the whole practice: sit, breathe, don’t interfere. Thoughts are weather; you are the sky. Begin with fifteen minutes.
The unforced hour: Dedicate one hour daily to activity without agenda — walk without destination, tend something growing, do a craft slowly. No optimizing, no multitasking. Relearn what action feels like when nobody is watching, including you.
Softening check: Three times a day, notice where you are holding tension — jaw, shoulders, hands — and release it. Then notice where you are holding mental tension: the argument you’re rehearsing, the outcome you’re gripping. Release that too.

Tea practice: Prepare and drink tea with full attention — the heat of the cup, the color of the liquor, the steam. The Chinese tea sages understood: ceremony is not formality but a frame for presence.
Flowing movement: Tai chi, qigong, or simply slow walking — movement coordinated with breath, done for its own sake. The body learns wu wei faster than the mind.

Fasting from forcing: Periodic days of deliberately doing only what the day asks — no schedules, no goals, responsiveness as a discipline.
The useless day: In honor of Zhuangzi’s useless tree, occasionally spend a whole day producing nothing of value. Notice how hard this is. That difficulty is the teaching.