You know that Taoist term... Wu Wei? The quick translation of "No Action" isn't quite right. It actually should be translated as "No Extra or Useless Action." Thus, it doesn't mean relaxing and doesn't advise you to become a slacker. Wu Wei means to do what you're going to do, but to do it with economy, with absolutely the minimum of wasted effort, without the needless expenditure of excessive energy or emotion.

Anyway, I ran into this very cool Western explanation from the oddest source. When I was at Caltech, I took these little physics classes from the legendary Richard Feynman. He had used this concept called the "Principle of Least Action" in his formulation of quantum mechanics. (See http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/cuius/idle/evolution/ref/leastact.html)
Action, in Newtonian physics, being the kinetic energy minus the potential, integrated over time. Using this, he could show why a rope hangs in a catenary curve, plot the path of a comet around the sun, derive Maxwells Equations to define electromagnetism... and then he showed how most of quantum mechanics could be derived from this little principle - that nature doesn't waste energy excessively to get something done.

I then realized that this was Wu Wei, all the way.