…yielding to the flow
By Roger Mock
“That which is of all things most yielding can overcome that which is most hard.”
I chanced to read these words from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching in a book store some decades ago and they have stayed with me all this time. I believe the book was Alan Watts’ The Watercourse Way – his reflections on Taoism.
The words describe a wonderful paradox and they ring with truth. “Watercourse Way” is another name for Taoism where water represents the ultimate source of things, the Tao itself. Water is soft and humble and seeks the lowest place. It does not strive, it just flows. And in doing so, it wears down mountains.
Human history has been about striving, has it not? Always we are building the better machine, erecting the taller tower, pitting ourselves against the forces of nature to overcome – what? – nature itself? I guess we are trying to overcome entropy (aka: the way things are) and to ultimately make ourselves into the triumphant ruler of creation, the vanquisher of death and decay. We are striving for answers to the ultimate problem, but the problem is – every answer we come up with seems to create at least two new problems. And thus we arrive at the state of our world today…
That quote from Lao Tzu reminds one of something Jesus is quoted as saying in the gospel of Matthew: “Many who are first shall be last, and the last first”. And in earlier in Matthew we hear, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” Compare this with another verse from Lao Tzu: “The stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life. The hard and strong will fall. The soft and weak will overcome.”
It is a choice between willingness and willfulness, between the will of God and that voice in our head that says, “Thanks for the suggestion, God, but I’ve got this. It will work out a lot better if I just take charge here!” Jesus, on his part, revealed the better path: “Not my will, Father, but Thine be done.” He, too, knew the wisdom of water.