Dao flows like water Water flows because it

§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)