Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 43 — The Softest Overcomes the Hardest
Non-being penetrates where there is no space
The softest in the world overcomes the hardest. Non-being (wú) penetrates that which has no space. This is how I know the benefit of non-action. Wordless teaching, benefit through non-action — few in the world attain it.
Source context
- Theme
- the soft overcoming the hard; the power of wu-wei and non-action to penetrate what is rigid and unyielding
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Vedanta (ajata-vada / nirguna Brahman)The formless and attribute-less Brahman permeates and dissolves all conditioned forms, a structural parallel to the Tao's effortless penetration of the hardest substances through its very emptiness.
- Buddhist doctrine of sunyataNagarjuna's emptiness (sunyata) as the unconditioned ground that moves through all dharmas without obstruction offers a cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 43's teaching that what has no substance passes through what has no opening.
- Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Enneads)Plotinus's account of the One acting without effort or diminishment upon lower hypostases presents a structural parallel to the effortless (wu-wei) efficacy by which the softest thing overcomes the hardest.
Chapter 43
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 doing nothing (with a purpose).
There are few in the world who attain to the teaching without words, and the advantage arising from non-action.