Water, Flexibility and the Tao Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Water, Flexibility and the Tao - Essay Example This refrain of the Tao Te Ching holds up water as a model for human flexibilty and adaptiveness. Water, it says, is milder than any components in its way, but then it disintegrates those components with its very tenderness. This is valid in nature, obviously. Water transforms rocks into sand, making delicate what is difficult. Numerous things break up in water, when all the water can do is stream around those components. Water respects anything in its manner, a marvel effectively observed by any mountain stream. Water respects a stone in its manner, streaming around it. Along these lines the â€Å"gentle defeats the rigid,† and the water discovers its way to the ocean without being halted by rocks or fallen trees. As the Tao says, everybody has seen this, however few can make this fact work for themselves, in their own lives. This trouble comes from the human propensity to coordinate our own activities, and can be understood by a comprehension of the Tao as the normal state t o which things can return. In a critique by the Center for Taoist Thought and Fellowship, the author recommends that individuals misjudge this stanza, feeling that being adaptable like water implies being frail. In any case, the vast majority don't see the little bits of hardness that are in water. â€Å"It isn't the water which assaults the hard and solid, it is the infinitesimal bits of hard and solid suspended in the water which do the job.† This proposal gives the refrain another importance, permitting the peruser not to be exclusively delicate yet to permit their delicateness to encompass an incredible hardness.