\u201cBest to be like water,<\/p>\n
Which benefits the ten thousand things<\/p>\n
And does not contend.<\/p>\n
It pools where humans distain to dwell,<\/p>\n
Close to the TAO.\u201d<\/p>\n
The above is an excerpt from the eighth section of the \u201cTao-Te Ching.\u201d There can be no argument against the benefits of water, but as an analogy for behavior, it can be even more profound. It provides life to the earth by flowing to areas of need, and stabilizing environments. There are no organisms that can live without it. However, the main thing that struck me from this passage is that it says water \u201cdoes not contend.\u201d What does it mean to contend? To say that it simply means to strongly assert an opinion, seems to miss the meaning. Water can indeed be very forceful, when it has pressure to move, so how can there be a claim against its behavior of contention?<\/p>\n
A passage from \u201cSiddhartha\u201d by Herman Hesse was brought to mind, as I was pondering this. It goes:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe river is everywhere at once \u2013 at its source, at its mouth, by the waterfall, by the ferry crossing, in the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains \u2013 everywhere at the same time. And that for it there is only the present, not the shadow called the past, not the shadow called the future… Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has its being and is present.\u201d<\/p>\n
So maybe, by saying water does not contend, the passage from the \u201cTao-Te Ching\u201d is saying that it is living in a state of being ever present. If one were to say that the past and the future are two sides of the yin-yang symbol, then in order to achieve balance, one must focus on living in the present. I do not claim to have nailed the author\u2019s intended meaning, but thinking through this has provided a helpful reminder in the practical benefits of living in the moment, or being like water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cBest to be like water, Which benefits the ten thousand things And does not contend. It pools where humans distain to dwell, Close to the TAO.\u201d The above is an excerpt from the eighth section of the \u201cTao-Te Ching.\u201d There can be no argument against the benefits of water, but as an analogy for behavior, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9196675,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9196675"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}