Water, Flexibility and the Tao - Essay Example

Chapter 78 of the Tao Te Ching: Water, Flexibility and the Tao Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid. Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice. Therefore the Master remains serene in the midst of sorrow. Evil cannot enter his heart. Because he has given up helping, he is peoples greatest help. True words seem paradoxical. -Tao Te Ching1 This verse of the Tao Te Ching holds up water as a model for human flexibilty and adaptiveness. Water, it says, is softer than any elements in its way, and yet it dissolves those elements with its very gentleness. This is true in nature, of course. Water turns rocks into sand, making soft what is hard. Many things dissolve in water, when all the water is able to do is flow around those elements. Water yields to anything in its way, a phenomenon easily seen by any mountain stream. Water yields to a rock in its way, flowing around it. In this way the “gentle overcomes the rigid,” and the water finds its way to the sea without being stopped by boulders or fallen trees. As the Tao says, everyone has seen this, but few are able to make this truth work for themselves, in their own lives. This difficulty stems from the human tendency to direct our own actions, and can be solved by an understanding of the Tao as the natural state to which things can return. In a commentary by the Center for Taoist Thought and Fellowship, the writer suggests that people misinterpret this verse, thinking that being flexible like water means being weak. However, most people do not see the small bits of hardness that are in water. “It is not the water which attacks the hard and strong, it is the little tiny bits of hard and strong suspended in the water which do the job.”2 This suggestion gives the verse a new meaning, allowing the reader not to be solely soft but to allow his or her softness to surround a powerful hardness. In the original verse, it seems as though one must be entirely unyielding in order to overcome the hardness encountered in the world. This interpretation is missing a crucial element that is supplied by the Centers commentary. The softness of water allows the hardness contained to be of greater effect. Without being too solid and too unmoveable, water carries tiny bits of hard elements along in a flowing, uncontrolled way. According to the Center, the flexibility of water is the vehicle for the powerful, hard elements inside it: “The water is the medium, not the doer. It’s my approach to action, not the action itself which is all important. I’m like a small flake of hard and strong and must remain fluid to overcome.”3 From this perspective, water is the way a persons strength is able to take effect. Water, as mentioned, is fluid. A person who allows his or her strength to be carried along in a fluid, yielding way removes him- or herself from the effort typically expended to gain ones ends. This removal of effort and desire is characteristically Taoist. A follower of the Tao allows instead of directing, an element most clearly expresed in verse 37 of the Tao Te Ching: The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done. If powerful men and women could venter themselves in it, the whole world would be transformed by itself, in its natural rhythms. People would be content with their simple, everyday lives, in harmony, and free of desire. When there is no desire, all things are at peace. 4 This verse reinforces the water-as-medium concept in its suggestion to transform the world “in its natural rhythms.” In allowing things to happen rather than causing them, one has the greatest effect. This interpretation then requires a re-examination of the second part of chapter 78. The lines read “The soft overcomes the hard;/ the gentle overcomes the rigid.”5 Within the interpretation of water as the vehicle for power, the soft overcomes the hard because of its lack of force. This lack of force is what allows an inner hardness to arise, but this hardness must not be interpreted as unmoveability. The hardness carried along by water moves along with the water itself, having its effect wherever it is placed instead of trying to control or direct. It is not the softness itself that overcomes the hard, then, but the strength that comes with a yielding. It does take a great deal of strength to yield, but the person who does so yields not to nothing, but to the Tao. In yielding, we allow the Tao to return the world to its natural state, rather than interfering, and we become strong in our trust that this will happen. We are now beginning to see two meanings implicit in the word “hard.” The hardness that is contrasted with water in Chapter 78 is a rigid hardness. It stands against the flexible and refuses to move. But the commentary cited above also mentions a kind of hardness that can be carried along in water. The question then arises if this is the same kind of hardness, only smaller, or if it is a different sort of firmness altogether. How far can we take the metaphor? In nature, rock is rock no matter what the size. What is the meaning of the metaphorical rock when we break it down and change it from a barrier to a tiny, powerful element, carried along by the flexibility of water? The change from unmoveability to moveability is crucial. The rock that does not move is too rigid to have any effect. The rock that allows itself to be carried along finds its power; indeed, rock born along by water can even break down a larger rock. Perhaps, then, the rigid rock is our power without our flexibility. In an attempt to place it where we wish, we instead remove its effectiveness. Our effort literally stands in the way of our power, and our desire blinds us to the power of yielding. Verse 78 continues on to continue this thought by applying it to the concept of help and charity: “Therefore the Master remains/serene in the midst of sorrow....Because he has given up helping,/ he is peoples greatest help.”6 Being “serene in the midst of sorrow” may seem heartless to those who are raised in religions that place a high value on charitable actions. Even those non-religious may see this as a devaluing of compassion; after all, what good person would be calm and unaffected in the face of others sorrow? What religious figure would give up helping? However, the Tao goes on to suggest that people can be of the most help by choosing not to help at all. This may seem at first glance to be if not impossible then at least unlikely. Anyone can imagine themselves in need and asking for assistance, and having that assistance denied. Many of us have even been in that situation. How can we see denial as more useful than help granted? The Center for Taoist Thought and Fellowship suggests that problem-solving is in effect a problem in itself. “True, I can solve current problems, but these are always replaced by another problem. Just as all answers are always followed by deeper questions. At the end of the day, or time itself, what remains is the question or the problem. “7 If the problem remains even after it has been solved, then perhaps choosing not to solve the problem is in essence the only way to bypass it. If solving the problem leads to a new problem, then helping would cause hurt. If we ignore the problem, perhaps then we let it play out and allow the natural course of things to flow. By refusing to interfere, as the Tao suggests, we prevent ourselves from creating new problems and allow the old ones to resolve themselves in the natural way. This is, presumably, another reason why people find it difficult to emulate water rather than a harder, more rigid element. Not solving our problems goes against our human instincts. When something goes wrong, for ourselves or for others, most of us try to fix it. Living within ourselves and limited by the confines of our bodies, it is easy for us to see the expense of effort as our only option in the face of hardship. We see the world through our own eyes, and we feel our efforts as advocating for our lonely, vulnerable selves. The world, to our senses, is separate from us, and so it is hard for us to see that our problems would be solved by an outside force. However, the Tao is not an outside force but an all-encompassing force. The situation is not one of the world and a human in conflict. A human being is part of the world, and in interfering changes the natural course of things. The Tao is the natural course and returns the world to the state in which it should be. The Tao is nature not in the form that most associate with the word – grass, trees, animals – but a Way. The Tao is what happens when we allow things to take their natural course, as water will do. Water will always flow towards its goal, no matter what is put in its way. Water will always continue to flow, no matter what; it will find a way. No wonder, then, that Chapter 78 speaks of water as the ideal Way. Water exemplifies the Tao, the natural manner of the way things should progress. Water does not try to flow; it simply flows. The Tao does not try to be the Tao, it simply is. And in that allowing, both water and the Tao are infinitely powerful. This is what is meant by the last line of chapter 78 quoted above, “True words seem paradoxical.” Water and the Tao both find their power in allowing nature to take its course. The softness of water allows it to have power; the letting-go of the Tao allows the natural Way to happen. Understanding the Tao, through chapter 78 with the aid of chapter 37, ultimatley comes back to a sense of release. In letting go of our human desire to control our environment, we let our environment (metaphorical and physical) control itself. To do this, of course, we must let go of any desired ends. “When there is no desire,/ all things are at peace.”8 In order to have the softness of water, we must keep this in mind. Desire makes it much more difficult to let go to the Tao, because with desire there is only one acceptable end. With no desire, the right end result is the one that happens naturally. And so, if the Tao is allowed to be and people become as water, flowing naturally, then struggle ends. With the end of struggle, peace is possible. Only in letting go of our rigidness and our desire, however, will allow us to be carried along in the water of the Tao, and find this natural end. Works Cited Tao Te Ching. n.d. Web. Retrieved 9 December, 2011 from http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/ phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html “Chapter 78 Commentary.” Center Tao.com. n.d. Web. Center for Taoist Thought and Fellowship. Retrieved 9 December 2011 from jttp://www.centertao.org/tao-te-ching/dc-lau/chapter-78- commentary/ Read More