Like a River (Tao Te Ching 34)

34

The great Tao is like a river,
winding through the land.
The living things sprout from it
and its gifts never stop flowing.
It achieves marvelous things
but doesn’t take credit.
It gives birth to,
clothes, and
raises the living things,
but it doesn’t claim to own them.
Since it covets nothing
it appears lowly.
The living things keep coming back
for the life it pours out,
but it doesn’t use their reliance
as an opportunity to
lord it over them.
It is great.
Because it doesn’t
seek greatness,
it is magnificent.

Written Reflection

The winding shape of a river is a natural occurrence caused by a natural flow. Observing its course, we see that it never attempts to smash straight through a rock or hill, but rather dances around obstacles and goes on its way. Nonetheless, only fools underestimate its power, which can undermine the mightiest of fortresses.

Imagine peering out of a plane, looking down at a green serpentine stream through an arid desert. That’s Tao. The river does not claim to own anything. Yet it is unstoppable. It is powerful without dominating. Lao Tzu frequently encourages his audience to act like water. It is arguably the most important symbol of the Tao Te Ching, since flowing water doesn’t use energy, but is energy. It consumes no fuel as it goes on its course, yet it never runs out of steam. Rather, it surfs the Tao into the depths of the earth, evaporates to the heights of the atmosphere, then tumbles down to the soil once more.

Water brings dead landscapes to life, but never forfeits its existence when it temporarily becomes part of other living beings, whether in the cells of green shoots or mighty elephants. It heals, it washes, it renews, it destroys. It does all this and needs no award for this work.

In our lives, the ability to do powerful work without focusing on getting accolades is spiritually healthy but also practically valuable. Here are two anachronistic renderings we brainstormed for this chapter. While they didn’t make the cut, they are illustrative of the concepts in this chapter:

The Tao writes a great novel but doesn’t keep the copyright.

The Tao invents an amazing machine, but doesn’t register the patent.

The point here is that the Tao gives birth to and then properly rears and clothes the children (or perhaps raises livestock) without treating these things as if they were its property. This challenges the goals of some business professionals who might hoard or flaunt wealth in an attempt to be ambitious or appear successful. The Tao appears uninterested in such moves, and so some might call it humble or low class, or plebeian, or meek. The lowliness here resonates with Jesus’ teaching that the meek shall inherit the earth, which can be read as a promise for the life to come, a promise for what’s possible in this life when we let go of useless striving, or both.

An application for those who are relating to religious communities and ideologies seems to be this: worship of a deity that is hung up on being worshipped by a host of minions may not be worth worshipping, because that deity might accord more with the concept of the Devil than with the God who, like the Tao, “pours out life.” So too, religious leaders ought to take this teaching to heart, especially in light of this teaching from Jesus:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:25-28)