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4. Horizons Unknown to a Frog in a Well

Taoist teachers, such as Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, were practical people. They did not propound a sterile philosophy or academic wisdom. They offered a fuller way of living, a method of surviving the pressures of a chaotic world. Their pupils were professional soldiers, businessmen, tax collectors, magistrates and other civil servants. The secret of success, they taught, lies in knowing who and what we are. Effective action must spring from familiarity with the source of power within us. We will only achieve results if what we do is carried by the Tao.

The Tao flows in us. The Tao is like a river flowing home to the sea. (1) The Tao is like a mighty stream that fills everything. What is so fascinating about it is its way of combining omnipotence and self-effacement. “The ten thousand things depend on it for life yet it makes no pretensions. It does its task yet makes no claim.” (2) The Taoists loved the image of water on account of its paradoxical qualities which, for them, expressed what the divine presence, the Tao, is like. “The highest good is like water. Water gives life to the ten thousand things without begrudging them anything. It flows to places others reject. It is so much like Tao.” (3)

Sometimes we can be like the Yellow River. In autumn thousands of wild torrents flow into it, so that it swells into a mighty stream. The river laughs, proud of its strength. Boastful and haughty he swings downstream to the coast. There he sees the ocean and his face falls. He tries to measure its vast expanse and fails. He offers his apologies. Rightly so.

Of all the waters in the world
the Ocean is the greatest.
Though all rivers pour into it, day and night,
it never fills up.
Though it returns its water day and night,
it never runs empty.
Its level does not drop in summer.
It does not rise at the time of floods.
No other water can match it. (4)

When we become aware of Tao we realize how all we have is dwarfed by Tao’s magnitude. It is a realization that could frighten us and make us feel put down. It should not. Rather, it should reassure us. We too are carried by the same infinite, universal Tao. Knowing this liberates us from our narrow-mindedness. It frees us from our kitchen-and-garden horizon. What is required on our part is the willingness to open up, to embrace cosmic reality. “Can you talk about the ocean to a frog in a well?” (5)

If we want to be close to the Tao in us, we should imitate it. This means we should be like water. Or, to put it in a different way, we should not swim “against the flow”. In all circumstances we should study nature and act in harmony with it. The Taoists tell many stories to illustrate this. An old man fell into a river with cataracts and whirlpools. People rushed forward to help him, but did not know what to do: the place was notorious for

its fatal accidents. To everyone’s surprise the old man clambered ashore after having been under water for a long time. “How did you manage?”, they exclaimed. “Easy”, he replied. “I knew the stream. I allowed myself to be pulled down by downward currents. Then I came up with an upward current.” (6) A cook showed King Wen Hui how to cut up a massive ox with just a gentle swish of his knife. The secret lay in finding the natural lines of the joints, cutting along bones and ligaments, not across them. (7) A wood carver explained to the King of Lu how he had hewn an unusual bellstand out of one trunk. After mental concentration and fasting he spent many days in the forest till his eye fell on a tree that seemed to hold the bellstand naturally in its form. He followed the lines of nature. (8)

The wisdom of “riding on a wave” is obvious. Applications of it can be found in all skills and professions. But we have to dig deeper to appreciate the real point. The old man who fell into the river, the cook and the wood carver acquired their skill because they had come to adopt a new attitude. They had become docile, humble, unassertive; like Tao. In Taoist words they had become like a valley - which adopts an unassumingly low position between ambitious mountain ridges, thus filling itself with life-giving water and flourishing crops. The valley, Iying low in silent fertility, is like a woman during intercourse who by her stillness overcomes and fulfils the passion of her partner.

The spirit of the valley never dies.
She is the woman. the mysterious mother. (9)

A great country is the lower reaches of a river
the place where the rivers of the world unite,
the mother of the world. Woman overcomes man by stillness,
lying low in stillness. (10)

Why is the ocean king of a hundred
valleys and their streams?
Because it lies in a lower position.
Therefore it is king of these valleys and streams. (11)

The lying low of water is so marvellous because it seems like non-action, while being highly efficient. The Taoists called this wu-wei, non-doing. It is hard to define this paradoxical notion accurately. On the one hand it implies reserve: one does not interfere, is not ambitious, renounces profit and fulfilment, rejects selfish desires. (12) On the other hand, one does not neglect one’s duties: one looks after those in one’s care, fulfils all one’s responsibilities. The motto is: “Tao rests in non-action, yet nothing is left undone.”(13) It is the way we do it that matters—like walking without leaving a track; like counting figures without a bulky score board; like tying a cord without ugly knots. (14) The strength of water is in its silence. When it is disturbed, as when a storm whips up high waves on a lake, water plays along, allowing itself to be temporarily ruffled. But as soon as the wind subsides, water returns to its natural calm. It becomes so still and flat that it shines like a polished mirror

Still water is like glass.
Look in it and you will see the bristles on your chin.
It is a perfect level
so that carpenters can use it.
If water is so clear, so level,
how much more the human mind?
The heart of a wise person is tranquil.
It is the mirror of heaven and earth
reflecting everything.
Emptiness, stillness, tranquillity,
reserve, silence, non-action:
these mirror heaven and earth.
This is perfect Tao
Wise people find here their point of rest. (15)

Everything we saw in the previous chapters comes together in this text. The experience of conscious inner quiet puts us in touch with the all-pervading silent power of Tao. Through this silent awareness we reach out and touch God in us. Whatever we do will now be inspired by the efficient non-action that characterizes God’s own creative energy. As fish find all they need in water, we find our happiness and our strength in Tao. (16)

For in spite of its softness and its tendency to lie low, water can perform amazing feats. It yields. It is supple. It seeks the easiest way. Yet it does not give in. It achieves its purpose with indomitable force. This insuperable power can be ours if we allow Tao to govern our strategy.

Nothing under heaven is softer and weaker than water.
Yet for subduing the hard and the strong, nothing can surpass it.
The weak overcomes the strong.
The supple overcomes what is stiff. (17)

The softest thing in the world
overcomes the hardest things in the world.
The flimsy substance enters space
that has no room.
That is why I know non-action works. (18)

Water may take time. Eventually it will self a way through even the hardest rock.

These meditations on water give us an idea of how the Taoists viewed reality. Let us for one moment return to the scene where the two envoys of the King of Ch’u offered Chuang Tzu the highest post at court. The master, we remember, was standing knee-deep in Pu river. “Leave me alone”, he had said. “It is better for a turtle to drag its tail in the mud.” We now know all the unspoken things that went through his mind. He looked at the water of the river, admiring its qualities: its life-giving power, its unobtrusiveness, its silence, its strength, its universality and utter simplicity. He knew he was seeing an image of the Tao, the divine Reality that underlies all being; of the Tao in himself.

He had experienced precious moments of contact with that divine Reality. During hours of silent prayer he had felt anxiety and worry ebb away. He had seen the bonds of money, pleasure and position loosen their grip. Even the fear of sickness and death could no longer terrorize him. He had begun to breathe a new freedom, a new joy about the marvel of living. A country needs statesmen and soldiers, it is true; but it would be unwise for him to seek such posts, or be pushed into them by an ambitious monarch. Better to be like water, seeking the lowest place, being a fertile valley where others could find rest and guidance. “Fishes and turtles thrive in water”, he must have thought. “I thrive by union with Tao.”

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