How the gentle overcomes the rigid

How the gentle overcomes the rigid

Good advice that is often repeated by different people through our lives is to be as strong as a rock, or to be firm and immovable like a mountain when confronted by tough situations. Yet, the counsel of the ancient Chinese sages, who saw things rather differently, is to be strong ¬ like water.
Lao-tzu advises emulating this element, even if it seems contrary to what our minds and conditioning indicate. We are told in the Tao Te Ching: 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 and the gentle overcomes the rigid. Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice.
We underestimate its power, unless faced with tsunamis or heavy flooding. Water can crash with force, but also slip through or go around obstacles, or wear them away in time. Flexibility, not rigidity, is extolled as the strength to develop in these teachings.
The excessive engagement and stimulation we face these days make us over-focussed, watchful, stressed and rigid. We believe all will be well if we can be in control of external forces. This does not work, yet we resist being like water ¬ open and capable of flowing with the circumstances by responding accordingly. The idea of control should be viewed differently; while we cannot control most of what happens to us, we can control how we react.
As with water. Water does not stiffen in expectation of a blow, but rather curves around the impact. And in the martial arts, it is this kind of strength that allows us to succeed. Bruce Lee famously declared: You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup... in a bottle, it becomes the bottle... in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. “Become like water my friend.”
But more significant is his recounting of an experience that taught him more about another aspect of strength ¬ that of letting go, moving on. “Suddenly a bird flew by and cast its reflection on the water. Right when I was absorbing myself with the lesson of the water, another mystic sense of hidden meaning revealed itself to me; should not the thoughts and emotions I had when in front of an opponent pass like the reflection of the birds flying over the water?” Margaret Atwood, in Penelopiad, writes: “Water ... cannot be broken; if we are like water, then we cannot be broken either...Water does not resist. Water flows... Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone.Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
Life lessons from water include the understanding that persistence wins over hurry; the hard and rigid are overcome by the relentless application of gentle things. Water changes its form in response to its environment, but never loses its meaning; solid or light, cold or hot, water is always water. And in being like water, we also need to remember ¬ that water is a source of nourishment and healing, and we can be like that towards ourselves and towards others.