Water is the softest and most yielding substance. Yet nothing is better than water, for overcoming
the hard and rigid, because nothing can compete with it. Lao Tzu Many people are hijacked by the rigidity of
their minds. Thinking in categories and fixed ideas can
be a great crutch for survival, as it creates clarity in a chaotic universe. But thinking too rigidly also has its negative
consequences. Seeing the world in categories and separate
boxes limits our perception, so we become stuck in our ideas of how things are, or supposed
to be. As the universe is ever-changing, and most
things, if not everything, is more complex than our minds can comprehend, a more fruitful
approach to life, would be one that is flexible, tangible, that enables us to flow along. You know... a bit like water. The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu celebrates
flexibility in his timeless work named the Tao Te Ching, in which he opposes the rigid
life stance that some people choose to take. In contrast to what many think, weakness,
or more specifically, the ability and willingness to yield, can actually be a great strength,
according to Taoist philosophy. Hence, Lao Tzu states that the supreme good
is like water. This video explores the benefits of being
a bit less rigid and a bit more like water. One thing that characterizes Taoist philosophy
is deference towards nature. The ways of nature are all-encompassing. The dance between opposites is the fundamental
principle of how the universe works, which manifests as ongoing change. When we observe nature closely and through
a Taoist lens, we can see two forces at work: yin and yang, or the feminine and the masculine. Yang consists of the more active elements
of existence, like speed, restlessness, productivity, excitement, aggressiveness, being outgoing,
but also hardness, dryness, and stiffness. Yin consists of the more passive elements,
like silence, receptiveness, not reacting as opposed to reacting, and also softness,
and flexibility. Our culture celebrates the yang aspects of
life. It’s all about faster, bigger, more, better,
standing your ground, defending your unchanging opinions, confronting and clashing with the
enemy, altering rather than adapting. Yin aspects, on the other hand, are looked
down upon. For example: being receptive to opposing opinions,
and being willing to change your views is often seen as weak. “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall
for anything,” former American politician Alexander Hamilton famously quoted, which
may be true, but if we’re not willing to maintain certain flexibility, never change
our viewpoints on anything, never change our approach, and are never willing to bend with
the winds of life, we become as rigid as a dead branch. When we observe the nature of water, we’ll
discover that it’s extremely resilient to change, as water is able to take all kinds
of different forms. We can pour water in a glass and it becomes
the glass when it’s part of the ocean it waves. Depending on the outside temperature water
changes its behavior; when it’s cooked it evaporates, and when it’s frozen it becomes
solid. Thus, water survives many different circumstances
by adaptation. The softness of water adds strength to living
beings, because it makes them flexible, and, therefore, more resilient to outside circumstances. As Lao Tzu stated: The living are soft and yielding; the dead
are rigid and stiff. Living plants are flexible and tender; the
dead are brittle and dry. End quote. Things that are brittle and dry will break
easily, and are either dead or equivalent to being dead. The same goes for minds that are rigid and
stern. People that are rigid and stern generally
have difficulties dealing with change, as they desire permanence, rather than the uncertainty
of impermanence. Unfortunately for these people, change is
inevitable. Life is impermanence. If life would be permanent, it would be lifeless. Thus, when we don’t accept the reality of
impermanence, we waste a lot of energy fighting the inevitable. Change in life comes in different forms; we
could experience small changes. For example: a new colleague. Or we could experience big changes like moving
to another country, divorce, or even death. Now, if we’d compare life to a river, we
could see its subtle twists and turns as small changes, a drastic change in course would
represent a big change, and when it discharges in the ocean it would be death. We see that, no matter what happens, the river
flows along with the changes of circumstances, adapting to different landscapes, and finding
its way past obstructions without effort. Even its inevitable annihilation the river
approaches without being troubled, without resistance, as it simply merges into something
else. And, thus, we live life in a continuous flow,
finding our ways around everything that crosses our path, not resisting even the most drastic
of changes, including death. But also, when we’d be contained, like water
being kept in a jar, we’d just be still and be the jar, until our circumstances change. Lao Tzu argues in the Tao Te Ching that the
soft overcomes the hard. He takes water as a metaphor for this assertion;
water is soft and flexible, but also has the power to erode the hardest materials like
rock and metal. I quote: Everyone knows that the soft and yielding
overcomes the rigid and hard, but few can put this knowledge into practice. End quote. So, to be like water, we need to know how
we can overcome the hard by being soft. First of all, Taoism is a philosophy about
‘not forcing’ anything. In practice, we can see that using force is
not only exhausting, it often doesn’t get us anywhere. Now, this doesn’t mean that we should never
use force in certain situations. But in many cases, the soft approach is superior
to using force, when it comes to long term results, as well as saving our energy, and
maintaining a tranquil mind. This mechanism is best explained through examples. A great example of the power of softness we
can find in the movie Shawshank Redemption, in which the protagonist Andy Dufresne is
sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary for murdering his wife and and her lover,
even though he keeps saying that he didn’t do it. After 19 years of imprisonment, he escapes
and flees to Mexico. Andy uses soft and stealthy methods to reach
his goals. Probably because of his background as a banker,
he’s able to think long term, and knows that small actions in the present will eventually
lead to big changes in the future. He also loved geology, which is, as the film
puts it, “a study of pressure and time.” By being friendly and helpful and using his
intelligence, he’s able to become a trustee of the corrupt and heartless prison warden
Samuel Norton, and enjoys several privileges. By sending a letter to the state’s senate
every week for six years, he’s able to get funding for a prison library. Eventually, Andy escapes through a tunnel
that he dug using a small hammer which he hid in a bible. It takes him 19 years to dig that tunnel;
a project that he hides behind a poster of a pin-up girl. With his soft and patient approach, he did
not only conquer a thick, concrete wall, but also the prison’s authority. His escape, however, is explosive. He rushes into the tunnel, gets on the other
side, breaks a sewer pipe, crawls through 500 yards of excrement, cashes in, exposes
the warden to the media, and flees to Mexico. Thus, he doesn’t abstain from using force
completely; he just saves it for the right opportunity, that took him 19 years of softness
to create. To be like water means that we’re able to
adapt to different circumstances. Every situation has something positive to
it. In still water, the dust can settle so it
becomes clear. Streaming water passes different places and
sceneries, and nurtures the things that it encounters. In the yang-society we live in, we only seem
to value one part of human existence, which is the active part that revolves around achievement,
speed, and success. We get educated, take on a lot of responsibility
in regards to work and family, try to get rich and do it as quickly as possible, and
judge each other as ‘human doings’, rather than human beings. Being useless, or stupid, or ugly, or poor,
is generally considered undesirable. But if we master the flexibility of finding
the positive in the negative, we’ll realize that these undesired characteristics have
positive aspects to them. It’s just a matter of perception. For example: being poor means less money and
possessions to worry about, and being ugly means that we’re less likely to end up in
a string of abusive relationships, and that people like us for our personality instead
of looks. In the Taoist work Zhuangzi, there’s a story
about a crooked tree, which was so deformed compared to the straight trees, that lumberjacks
labeled it useless, as it was unable to turn into usable wooden planks. Then, Zhuangzi came along, and stated that
the tree is actually very suitable as a place to relax. Because the tree was seen as useless by the
lumberjacks, it never got chopped down, so it became old and big, and people eventually
turned it into a holy site. So, the longevity of the tree was due to its
uselessness. Being useless may not lead to a good reputation,
and will probably evoke shaming and blaming by our environment. But it also leads to less burdens, less pressure,
and probably a much more relaxed life. Every cloud has a silver lining. Moreover, water always seeks the lower places,
and makes the best out of circumstances that no one wants to be in. Life is characterized by softness, and softness
is strength. Soft things don’t break easily, because
they can bend and yield, unlike the brittle and rigid. Even the hardest of rock can be overcome by
the gentleness of water, and even the blowing of the wind. Hence, a famous actor, philosopher, and martial
artist once said: “Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and
let it grow, be like water.” Thank you for watching.
