Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 78 — Nothing Softer Than Water
Yet nothing surpasses water in overcoming the hard
Nothing in the world is softer than water; yet for attacking the hard and strong, nothing surpasses it. The weak overcomes the strong; the soft overcomes the hard. All know this; none can practise it. He who bears the disgrace of the country is master of the altars; he who bears the misfortune of the country is king of the world. Straight words seem inverted.
Source context
- Theme
- paradoxical supremacy of yielding water over rigid stone; the weak overcoming the strong through non-contention
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Daoist cosmologyChapter 78's equation of supreme efficacy with apparent weakness (water wearing stone) is the structural core of wu-wei doctrine, wherein the softest substance overcomes the hardest through patient, non-resistant action.
- Vedantic non-dual ethicsThe Bhagavad Gita's teaching on nishkama karma — action without grasping — presents a cross-tradition congruence with the Daoist principle that the sage who does not contend meets no resistance and thereby prevails.
- Sermon on the Mount / Christian beatitudesThe beatitude 'the meek shall inherit the earth' expresses a cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 78's paradox that the yielding and humble ultimately overcome the forceful and rigid.
Chapter 78
There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it;--for there is nothing (so effectual) for which it can be changed.
Every one in the world knows that the soft overcomes the hard, and the weak the strong, but no one is able to carry it out in practice.
Therefore a sage has said, 'He who accepts his state's reproach, Is hailed therefore its altars' lord; To him who bears men's direful woes They all the name of King accord.'
Words that are strictly true seem to be paradoxical.