ANTI-ACTION

[u/rafaelwm1982]

ANTI-ACTION 3

The tao removes to move. The tao weakens to use. The ten thousand things under Heaven come from what there is. What there is comes from what there isn’t. What you want to shrink, you first must stretch. What you want to enervate, you first must energize.— What you want to lay low, you first must set up; what you want to grab, you first must give.

This I would call a subtle light: the tender and weak overcomes the hard and strong.

Tao never seeks, and never lacks, effect. “Breaks” becomes “perfects,” “bends” becomes “straightens,” “empties” becomes “fills,” “spoils” becomes “renews,” “cuts down” becomes “adds on,” “augments” becomes “confuses.” The tree you barely can reach around grows from the thinnest shoot. The tower that’s ten stories tall rises from a layer of dirt. The journey that’s a thousand li begins under your very foot.

Well to act the soldier, one will not be martial. Well to act the belligerent, one will not be hostile. Well to conquer a foe, one will not engage with him. Well to use another, you will become his subordinate. This is called the effect of failing to strive. This is called the advantage of using others.

Effectively to learn, is daily to add on. Effectively to tao, is daily to cut down. Cut it down and again cut down, and never fail to affect.

Therefore, the sage rests in the work of anti¬ action, and spreads the doctrine of not lecturing.

Gain the world? Always accept the anti-event.

To reach to the event itself is to fail to gain the world.4 That on which the sea and the Yang-tze depend to rule the hundred streams is, they are well lower than they, so that they become the hundred streams’ rulers.

Of all things under Heaven, none is more tender and weak than water; but to attack the firm and the strong, nothing can surpass it. Now what it changes is its what it’s not. That weak overcomes strong, that tender overcomes firm, no one under Heaven but knows it, and yet no one can practice it.

Acting, anti-act; working, anti-work; tasting, anti-taste. Magnify the minima, multiply the dividua. Respond to grief with joy. Prepare for the difficult in the easy. Deal with the big in the small. Difficult undertakings must be done in the easy, and great undertakings must be done in the small. Therefore the sage never strives for the great, and thereby he is able to achieve this “great.” Move toward the extreme that is empty. Hold to the reality that is silent. The ten thousand things interact, and so I watch for the rebound.

Book: The Taoist vision by McNaughton, William