In the world there is nothing more submissive
and weak than water. Yet for attacking
that which is hard and strong, nothing can surpass it. This is because there is nothing that can
take its place.
That the weak overcomes the strong
And the submissive overcomes the hard
Everyone in the world knows yet no one can put
this knowledge into practice.
Therefore the sage says,
One who takes on himself the humiliation of the
state
Is called a ruler worthy of offering sacrifices
to the gods of earth and millet.
One who takes on himself the calamity of the
state
Is called a king worthy of dominion over the
entire empire.
Straightforward words seem paradoxical.
Submission, weakness, humiliation, calamity. Like desolation, solitude and haplessness,
who would want them? The sage takes
these on, not as woeful weights but as rightful fashions to navigate the way
she must walk; they are the unfashionable fashions of the way, fashions the
sage refashions in her navigations.
What is this knowledge that our reputedly powerful
species contains but cannot enact? Is it
the suppressed knowledge of feebleness’ hidden powers? How do we transform our incapacity into
impossible practice? It has already been
thought and written and, having been thought and written, done: through returning.
To speak truly is to reunite the contradictions
of silence in words; to speak falsely is to verbally resolve—that is, to
fragment—the inherent contradictions of our existence.
Dao sides with water over stone and in so siding
offers sacrifices to the earth, the visible sphere of the empire.
