I’ve been enjoying your writing in “lurker” mode for some time and thought this post as good a time as any to join in the conversation more actively…

From my readings of the Taoist classics I’d add a couple of extra points regarding “being like water”:

1) The Daoists were impressed by the humble persistence of water in quietly achieving its ends by small degrees over a long period of time – think of the erosive power that created the Grand Canyon in Arizona – and thought this a worthy trait for emulation. Being seen as neither a threat or challenge, goals can be achieved despite the will of the powerful and without the risk of direct confrontation.

2) They also used water as a model for how to deal with obstacles, problems, or challenges. Think of how a river flows around a mountain rather than attempting to climb over it. It naturally takes the path of least resistance and still manages to achieve its ultimate “goal” (reaching the sea) but in the way that involves the least effort and resistance. In Western, scientific terms (my background is in the environmental sciences) we’d say it takes the path of lowest energy. No wasted effort; ends reached by the most efficient (but not necessarily the most direct or fastest, a point of confusion to many modern people) means possible.

Thinking more specifically about events like the tsunami, it brings up the interesting contrasts between Western and Eastern thought on disasters in general: Western thought is more likely to see such events as “evil” since there is a strong dichotomy between “good and evil” in the Western tradition, while my understanding is that Taoist thought, while not denying that the event is tragic, would see the event as also a symptom of lives lived out of touch with the Tao / out of balance with nature. Building in a floodplain is a calculated risk, and building levees to control the flow of nature is accepting a bet that you’ve built your levee high enough. Instead of “good and evil” Taoism seems to me to take the viewpoint of “wise versus foolish” and “healthy versus unhealthy.” Putting too much trust in levees would be seen as being on the “foolish” and “unhealthy” side of the ledger.

I’m also reminded of fung shui in this regard as well, in terms of the rules for siting a building. What might seem like mumbo-jumbo on first reading after reflection reveals at deeper levels a distillation of hard-learned folk wisdom (with a flashy patina for “marketing” purposes): for example, advice to build a house on a hillside, neither at the bottom (prone to flooding) nor the top (prone to wind damage or lightning, colder in winter, and easily seen by potential attackers).

Anyway, thanks for another thought-provoking posting.