Change Your Thoughts-Change Your Life Part 11 of 20: Living Softly
April 13, 2009 by dr. lam · 13 Comments
The 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.
Lao-Tzu’s writing takes a lot from nature, and in the first stanza he is elliptically referring to the way that water moves. Water is the softest of all things and effortlessly flows forward. Too often we are always in a determined hurry to push ourselves through force of determined will to advance. However, if we are like water, we flow forward effortlessly.
Many runners talk about the ability to improve their running by letting the mind’s interference go. When the mind tells the runners they must do this or they can’t possibly do that, there is an imminent failure. However, when the runner starts to work in an effortless plane and make the mind soft, they can propel themselves more easily to the finish line without even knowing it.
When we meet resistance in life, we force our ways through the resistance with a hardness of character. We might just find that by not trying too hard, we can succeed much more. Sometimes the beauty is in the nonaction and in the peace of silence. I myself am guilty of the need to always do and not let things go and just be. If we are encountering a difficult situation in which we are trying to cram a square peg into a round hole, perhaps we need to be soft like water and allow rather than force. We may more easily pass around the obstacle and flow forward rather than abruptly force ourselves in a way that hurts us, hurts others, and may lead to ultimate failure.