TAO v.s. MAGIS

"The pursuit of learning is to increase day after day.

The pursuit of Tao is to decrease day after day.

It is to decrease and further decrease until one reaches the point of taking no action.

No action is undertaken, and yet nothing is left undone.

An empire is often brought to order by having no activity (laissez-faire).

If one (likes to) undertake activity, he is not qualified to govern the empire." 

(Tao Te Ching 48)

Why there is nothing left undone through "non-action"? What is this "non-action" referred by Lao Tzu that denotes a completion of everything that is ought to be done?

To help us in answering the following questions, we will have another text in the Tao Te Ching:

"To hold and fill to overflowing

            Is not as good as to stop in time.

Sharpen a sword-edge to its very sharpest,

            And the (edge) will not last long.

When gold and jade fill your hall,

            You will not be able to keep them.

To be proud with honor and wealth

            Is to cause one’s own downfall.

Withdraw as soon as your work is done.

Such is Heaven’s Way."

(Tao Te Ching, 9)

From here, we can somehow sense that the "non-action" referred here by Lao Tzu is not a total abandonment of the enactment of things, but rather is an action that doesn't exceed to what it is ought to be. In other words, "non-action" refers to not over-doing. Like the already sharp sword mentioned above, if you are going to over-sharp it, it will not be a good sword anymore. Or in love ("Too much love will kill you"), or in food ("Too much chocolates and cookies will make your clothes shrink"), or in thinking ("Thinking too much will arise problems that were not present at the very first place"), or even in the very concrete issue in the Mamasapano case where the policemen were over-killed; we can really presuppose that "too much" of things will just result to unfavorable outcomes/consequences. 

Such idea of "too much" then is not the way of the Tao, that is why it promotes "non-action", or not over-doing. This is for the Tao only works to what is enough. As how it was said above: One must "withdraw as soon as the work is done". No to doing more, no to overcoming the extra mile (for the mile is enough already) -In short, NO TO MAGIS! And that is the Heaven's Tao; enough is enough.