Verse 43 - Living Softly

[Eva Libre]

43rd Verse

 

The softest of all things

overrides the hardest of all things.

That without substance enters where there is no space.

Hence I know the value of nonaction.

 

Teaching without words,

performing without actions --

few in the world can grasp it --

that is the master's way.

Rare indeed are those

who obtain the bounty of this world.

 

 

Contemplation/Meditation Verse

 

The softest of all things

         overrides the hardest of all things.

 

         

Do The Tao Now

 

Have a day of silence.  Don't speak aloud to anyone;  instead, just observe and see if you can be in a state of softness without telling yourself or anyone else what to do.  Gently consider the powerful words of Herman Melville, who once said that God's one and only voice is silence.

 

Source - Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life (Living the Wisdom of the Tao)

by Dr Wayne W Dyer

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

 

Introduce a soft, nonaction style to your life.

 

Practice the way of nonaction, or performing without effort.  By letting go of your inner drive to push ahead, you'll see that you ironically do better than when you tried so hard.  In your work, become more tolerant in your drive to achieve by softening your attitude and behavior.  You'll see that customers and larger opportunities are attracted to you.  Why is this true ?  Because you're allowing the perfect flow of the Tao, like the great gray heron lets the tide recede in order to reveal the nourishment he needs to live.  Notice how your life changes as you change the way you look at it.

 

Practice performing without effort in other areas of your life, too.  For example, some marathon runners say that they've learned to relax and stop pushing, letting their legs, arms, and torso simply be as their bodies begin experiencing extreme exhaustion with only a few miles to go.  They report that when they shut down the mental interference and instructions, they magically cross that finish line.  Soft always has its place, for it is the watercourse way . . . the way of the Tao.

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

 

Encourage desires to freely flow in your imagination.

 

Consider what you've wanted to have in this life as if it's behind a locked door.  Examine what you've been telling yourself about the prosperity, superb health, good luck, business success, or wonderful relationships you've craved -- that no matter how hard you've tried, it's all come to naught.  Then imagine yourself flowing like water through the barrier of that locked room.  Do it softly, gently, and silently in your mind.  In other words, just spend some time getting used to practicing the watercourse way of the Tao.

 

As you allow softness to be part of the picture of your life, the hard way will soften.  Begin to exercise this kind of effortlessness in all areas of your desires.  According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, "It is the condition of inspiration -- marry nature, don't use her for pleasure."  I urge you to consider this kind of marriage.

[Eva Libre]

From Richard Grossman - The Tao of Emerson

 

From James Legge - The Texts of Taoism, 1891

 

The softest thing in the world dashes against

          and overcomes the hardest;

That which has no substantial existence enters

          where there is no crevice.

I know hereby what advantage belongs

          to do nothing with a purpose.

There are a few in the world who attain

          to the teaching without words,

And the advantage arising from non-action.

 

 

From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Illusions", "Prudence" 

 

All is riddle, and the key to a riddle

          is another riddle.

To change and to flow, the gas becomes solid.

And phantoms and nothings

          return to be things.

Prudence consists in avoiding

          and going without,

Not in the inventing of means and methods,

Not in adroit steering, not in gentle repairing.

[Eva Libre]

From Vimala McClure - The Tao of Motherhood

 

43

SOFTNESS

 

Soft overcomes hard.

Who you are means more to

your child than what you teach.

 

When your heart is hard

and the bitter taste of strong

words is in your mouth,

step back.

 

Let mind go into soft heart.

Breathe kindness and remain

quiet.

[Eva Libre]

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star

 

The most yielding thing in the world

               will overcome the most rigid

The most empty thing in the world

               will overcome the most full

From this comes a lesson --

               Stillness benefits more than action

               Silence benefits more than words

 

Rare indeed are those who are still

Rare indeed are those who are silent

And so I say,

               Rare indeed are those

               who obtain the bounty of this world

[Eva Libre]

Tao Te Ching - The Classic Book of Integrity and The Way by Lao-Tzu

A New Translation by Victor H Mair

based on the recently discovered Ma-Wang-Tui Manuscripts

 

43 (6)

 

The softest thing under heaven

          gallops triumphantly over

The hardest thing under heaven.

 

Nonbeing penetrates nonspace.

Hence,

          I know the advantages of nonaction.

 

The doctrine without words,

The advantage of nonaction --

          few under heaven can realize these ! 

[Eva Libre]

Lynn's - Daode jing of Laozi

 

The softest things under Heaven gallop through the hardest things. (1)

 

There is no place that air [qi] cannot enter, no place that water cannot run through.

 

That which has no physical existence can squeeze through where there is no space, so from this I know how advantageous it is to act without conscious purpose.

 

Emptiness is so soft and pliable that there is no place that it cannot penetrate, for that which has no physical existence [wuyou] is inexhaustible and the perfectly soft is unbreakable.  It is by pursuing this line of thought that we come to understand how advantageous it is to act without conscious purpose [wuwei]. (2)

 

The teaching that is not expressed in world, (3) the advantage that is had by acting without conscious purpose, rare is it that anyone under Heaven ever reaches them. 

 

Text, in Italics above, is Wang Bi's commentary.

The notes below, are from the translator, Richard John Lynn -

(deb's note - "section" is used for verse in these notes.)

 

(1)Cf. section 36, second section.

 

(2)  In addition to the base text, this passage exists in three variants:

          [1]  "The perfectly soft is unbreakable, and nothingness is inexhaustible.  It is by pursuing this line of thought that we come to understand the Dao of acting without conscious purpose and how advantageous it is for dealing with the people.  What ever could surpass this !" (Daode zhenjing jijie (Collected exegesis on the True Classic of the Way and Virtue), 3:13 [16910B].

          [2]  "Nothingness is inexhaustible, and the perfectly soft is unbreakable.  It is by pursuing this line of thought that we come to understand the Dao of acting without conscious purpose and how advantageous it is for dealing with the people" (Daode zhenjing jizhu (Collected commentaries on the True Classic of the Way and Virtue), ed. Peng Si, 11:15 [17222B]); and Daode zhenjing zangshi zuanwei pian (An edition of collected subtleties from the treasure house of the True Classic of the Way and Virtue), 6:12 [17978A]).

          [3]  "So soft and pliable, for emptiness there is no place that it cannot penetrate.  The perfectly soft is unbreakable, and nothingness is inexhaustible  It is by pursuing this line of thought that we come to understand how the Dao of acting without conscious effort is advantageous" (Daode zhenjing qushanji (Selection of superlative remarks on the True Classic of the Way and Virtue), 6:21 [17078A]).  

All variants are critiqued in Hatano, Roshi Dotokukyo kenkyu, 296, and quoted in Lou,Wang Bi ji jiaoshi, 121 n.3.

 

(3)  Cf. section 2, third passage.

[Eva Libre]

From Stephen Mitchell - tao te ching - A New English Version

 

The gentlest thing in the world

overcomes the hardest thing in the world.

That which has no substance

enters where there is no space.

This shows the value of non-action.

Teaching without words,

performing without actions:

that is the Master's way.

 

 

From Byron Katie - A Thousand Names For Joy

- Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

 

The gentlest thing in the world

overcomes the hardest thing in the world.

 

The gentlest thing in the world is an open mind.  Since it doesn't believe what it thinks, it is flexible, porous, without opposition, without defense.  Nothing has power over it.  Nothing can resist it.  Even the hardest thing in the world -- a closed mind -- can't resist the power of openness.  Ultimately the truth flows into it and through it, like water through rock.

 

When the mind first becomes a student of itself, it learns that nothing in the world can possibly oppose it: everything is for it, everything adds to it, enlightens it, nourishes it, reveals it.  It continues to open, because it's in a fearless, undefended state, and it's hungry for knowledge.  And when it realizes that it's nothing, it can penetrate everywhere, even when there's no room for it, no place to receive it.

 

People are afraid to be nothing.  But being nothing is only one aspect of it.  Not only is it nothing to be afraid of, it's a cause for celebration.  Without your stressful story, there is no stress -- obviously !  When you don't believe your thoughts, there's only laughter and peace.  There are names for a place like that.  I call it heaven.  And how can people know that nothingness is while they still believe what they think ?  "Something is better than nothing" -- can you absolutely know that that's true ?

 

The truly open mind doesn't have a goal or a purpose other than to be what it is.  It's not attached to concepts of self or other.  It realizes that ultimately there are no humans, there is no mind.  When the mind opens, you lose everything, gratefully.  I'm sitting here as a woman, and in the next realization I'm a galaxy or an ant.  It doesn't matter.  You lose everything, and then there's the reentry.  On a good-hair day, don't you love to look in the mirror ?  That's what it's like.  You're looking in the mirror at nothing, delighted.  When you're nothing, it's always a good-hair day.

 

I can't know what the world is going to be.  My body is never the same twice.  It's tired, it's rested, it's large, then immediately it's thin.  I can never recognize it.  I see it as old, and that's lovely.  And then it shifts before my eyes again and becomes the body of a young girl.  It's like glimpsing something, and then you look again and it wasn't that at all.  It's absolutely gorgeous, then it shifts to something unfathomable.  I don't know what it is or whose it is or why it is.  And what it does is fascinating.  Its own hand begins stroking its own leg, for no reason other than to apply lotion to skin that doesn't need it.  And then it will hold a cup of anything and drink it, a liquid I call tea, for example, but I can never know that, either.  My world is one of constantly shifting forms.  There's nothing I can count on in it, not my age, not my body, not who is with me, not my identity, not the century, not the planet I live on.

 

Mind appears, if it appears, only to end itself.  The projected world goes first, then the mind that projected it.  No trace of it remains.  Silence is all that's possible -- the openness of never having existed in the first place.  That's where I live.  When it's over, it's over.  You can't create or uncreate it.  You wouldn't want to.

[Eva Libre]

Dr Dyer's Essay for Verse 43 -

 

The Tao Te Ching is full of parallels to nature, and in fact the pure essence of the teachings seems to be to help us become Tao-inspired sages through oneness with the environment.  The opening lines of this 43rd verse remind me of the way of water, of its softness and ability to enter everywhere, even where there's seemingly no space to do so.  Water is used symbolically in many references to Taoism, such as in the title of the outstanding contemporary work by Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way.  To live softly is to live the watercourse way.

 

In this verse, Lao-tzu invites you to change the way you view hardness.  To you, the concept is probably equated with strength.  You may work out because the firmer your muscles, the tougher you think you are.  Do you consider diamonds more valuable than a soft mineral, like volcanic ash, which crumbles in your hand ?  Perhaps you subscribe to the idea that doing a difficult task makes you a better person.  Now imagine emulating water, this basic element that is the embodiment of nature (after all, it does comprise 75 percent of both the world's surface and our physical makeup).  Think about the way water courses, flowing to the lowest place, and how in order to experience it, you can't just grab a handful.  You must instead relax, lightly placing your fingers inside of it.

 

Reflect upon how the gentle water compares to the solid stone and marble it's capable of carving through.  The soft water overrides hardness -- deep valleys surrounded by mountains of granite have been carved away over the centuries by the patient, quiet, moving liquid.  Imagine being able to enter where no space appears to be available, and to move slowly, speaking seldom and allowing yourself to be harmoniously intact as you seek a lower, less noisy and noticeable place . . . a place where all others desire to come to you.  This is the watercourse way.

 

There's value in the nonaction of being able to flow like water, naturally and effortlessly.  I can't help but think of this when I enter the ocean to swim for an hour or so.  I want to go with the current rather than swim against it, so my first choice involves seeing which way the water is coursing.  As I move through the sea, emulating its naturalness, I trust my instinct and swim without trying to direct my arms and legs in their strokes.  I think of it as doing, but not interfering -- that is, I'm allowing my body to propel itself through the water without my mind telling it how to move.  As I've changed my thoughts about "hard" and "soft", I don't have to do anything but be in the water.  I've chosen to make my daily swim a soft, silent experience that requires very little action on my part.  And my swimming world has changed, becoming easy, joyful, and almost effortless.  I've learned "the value of nonaction", as Lao-tzu expresses it in this verse.  It's performing without action !

 

Apply this way of seeing everything in your world: Tasks will be simplified, your performance level will increase, and the pressure to be better than others by using superior hardened strength will cease to be a factor.  You'll naturally incorporate the wisdom of peaceful harmony that's found in the martial arts by letting the efforts of others become a source of your own power.  Your softness will override the hardness of others.

 

This principle is clearly seen when you look at great champions as they perform their chosen activities.  The greatest golfers are effortless in their swing.  The most successful ballplayers run, jump, throw, catch, and shoot with a softness that seems to stupefy most observers -- they don't use force, nor can they find words to describe how they do it.  The most talented artists dance softly, without effort; paint quietly, without force; and write easily, without struggle, by allowing the words to come to them.  As Lao-tzu reminds you, these are rare beings who live the master's way.  These sages "obtain the bounty of this world", which is available to you, too.