flow
“This is the real secret of life– to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.” — Alan Wilson Watts
Water as the ultimate model for existence: seamless adaptation to immutable circumstances
as a necessary coping mechanism; formlessness; avoidance of rigidity.
"Be Like Water"
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Chapter 13 - 'Being Like Water: Go with the Flow' of Joseph Cardillo's 'Be Like Water: Practical Wisdom From The Martial Arts' explains flow...
"To go with the flow, people appear carefree as they float from one range to another, their actions relaxed, serene. Water people are soft on the outside and strong on the inside.
To go with the flow, you must slay the ego... what you think you want, what you will to believe, what you think you can afford...what you regard yourself bound to.
...The centered mind is balanced, stable, and egoless. ...(it is) still and reflecting, neither allowing anything to stick nor absorbing anything personally."
Bend, don't break
Like the branch that yields to the weight impressed upon it, when one responds to events in this way, favorable events are received with measured equanimity and that same way of response prevents the compounding the results of unfavorable events.
newborn – we are tender and weak
in death – we are rigid and stiff
living plants are supple and yielding
dead branches are dry and brittle
so the hard and unyielding belong to death
and the soft and pliant belong to life
an inflexible army does not triumph
an unbending tree breaks in the wind
thus the rigid and inflexible will surely fail
while the soft and flowing will prevail
Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu – chapter 76
