the most soft and ethereal things of the world
will always easily penetrate the hard and unyielding

those things that are without form
will always penetrate the impervious structure

because the true heart of hardness is soft

because the true heart of impervious solidity is formlessness

the artist can not paint a picture of water without
showing its source or
showing its destination

water will always wear down a stone

when I see water naturally seeking its own resting place
I know that it will arrive at that point
no matter what gets in the way

flow naturally like water
without contention or coercion
and you will arrive at your destination
and resting place

few understand the wisdom of unforced non-action
because it can not be expressed with words and labels
it can only be intuitively felt

it can only be understood with the softness and formlessness
of water

it can only be implemented with the softness and formlessness
of water

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching; An authentic Taoist translation. translated by John Bright-Fey

Today, Lao-tzu teaches another lesson learned from watching water: softness overcoming hardness; formlessness overcoming rigidness. He claims that the former in each of these examples will always penetrate the latter. Penetrate, is an interesting way to phrase it. To penetrate is to pierce, to enter into and permeate. This runs counter to all tangible experience, and yet it is offered to us as truth. This begs the question, “How is it that softness penetrates hardness, that formlessness permeates unyielding firmness?”

The answer hides within the thing itself. Recall the Taoist symbol Yang/Yin. Within each is its opposite. This concept carries over to our question. Any solid form was created from some less rigid structure, and all solid forms will eventually deteriorate—all order returns to the chaos from which it came. That is what is meant by, “the true heart of impervious solidity is formlessness.” It is true for physical objects, and it is true for metaphysical conceptions as well. Static thought unable to reconstitute itself eventually crumbles and caves under the pressure of the changing world. Concepts that adapt see their formless hearts manifest in the voluntary dissolution of old hardness and old solidity in order to make way for new shapes and forms.

This is the natural tendency of water, to flow and change shape until equilibrium is obtained. Water does not require outside, conscious force for this to be the case. It is in accord with its nature as it exists in the world. And in existing in accordance with its nature, in accordance with the Natural world, water flows and cuts stone, cleaves great rivers into the earth.

But to the conscious mind, this is too much mysticism, too much a contradiction. Like water, it is a thing which cannot be grasped by fingers of unyielding force. It is wisdom which can only be held through openness and emptiness—hands cupped as to be filled—subtly and suddenly, for it is wisdom born from the Tao source of life, a thing formless and shapeless, beyond words and labels.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Forty-Three”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.87