Water and Stone
The Teaching
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 a sincere heart. Because the Master competes with no one, no one can compete with the Master.
Commentary
‘The meek shall inherit the earth’ (Beatitudes) and ‘the soft overcomes the hard’ (Tao Te Ching) are functionally identical statements about the nature of reality. Gentleness, humility, non-grasping, not moral commandments imposed from outside but descriptions of how the deepest forces actually operate.
Water, the Tao’s favorite image, does not force its way. It finds the lowest place (humility), yields to obstacles while quietly wearing them away, takes the shape of whatever contains it while remaining wholly itself.
Gibran’s vision of love as the pruning force operates the same way, not through force but through patient, persistent, loving pressure. The reed cut from its source makes music. The water finds its way through stone.
Themes
Connections 11
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hinduism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Stoicism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Unsure
Chinese yin-yang and Taoist practice reached Japan (Onmyōdō). How much they shaped Shinto is argued.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Sufism and Taoism while these teachings took shape. Liu Zhi (18th c.) wrote Sufism in Chinese philosophical terms, but that came late.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Taoism.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Taoism.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Sufism and Taoism while these teachings took shape. Liu Zhi (18th c.) wrote Sufism in Chinese philosophical terms, but that came late.