The Highest Good Is Like Water

answered by Laozi, Dao De Jing, ch. 8

기원전 6~4세기

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Miracle in Milan (1951)

dir. Vittorio De Sica · Italy

The kindness of those with nothing collides with a greed that would seize even the ground they stand on. Gentleness always seems to lose before hard force. Yet a goodness that, like water, contends with nothing and still soaks the low places — by what does it overcome the strong?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Taking gentle goodness for weakness, do I believe only the force that contends and grabs is strength?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

上善若水

上善若水水善利萬物而不爭

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

The highest good is like water, which benefits all things yet contends with none.

💡 TL;DR

Laozi likened the highest good to water.

📝The Classic Answers

Laozi likened the highest good to water. Water contends with nothing and flows to the low places, yet it soaks all things and in the end wears away even hard rock. Greed tries to win by grabbing, but a gentleness that does not contend wins another way. Though the kindness of those with nothing seems to lose before force, its grain, like water, soaks the low places. Withdrawing the eye that measured strength only by grabbing, I choose to learn again water's way of winning without contending.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If you want to push something through by force today, imagine one water-like way to achieve it without contending.

📖 Classic Source: Laozi, Dao De Jing, ch. 8. Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.