Transcript daowater
Dao flows like
water. Water
flows because
it is empty.
‘Form is
emptiness and
emptiness is form’.
The Heart Sutra
The transient and
the ephemeral as
well as the
enduring share
this emptiness.
The Budha’s wisdom calls on
humans to seek a ‘middle
way’, while yielding to the
extremes and taking from
them. So, also, the Daoist
vision includes yielding and
appropriating as a form of
genuine strength.
Water seeks its own
level.
Plants seek water.
The seeker of Dao
becomes plant-like.
1. Dao is tender and flexible (76.1)
2. Dao is beautiful and yielding (40.1)
3. The hidden (roots) support the visible
(leaves), which return to the roots when they
perish (16.2)
4. Dao is hidden nonbeing, the root to which
all return (34.3).
5. The movement of Dao is seasonal and
cadenced. Thus it is ‘great’ as in Summer,
‘disappearing’ as in Autumn, ‘faraway’ as in
Winter, and ‘returning’ as in Spring (25.2)
6. Dao is pliant; non-Dao is stiff and dead
(76.1)
7. Dao is quiet (16.2)
8. Dao moves always at its own pace and, like
plant, is always giving birth to itself (55.1)
9. The Daoist celebrates perpetual childhood
(55.2)
10. Like water (as in Lispector’s Stream of
Life), Dao yields, has depth, and flows around
obstacles and is thus the greatest form of
goodness. Through yielding it wins (78.1)