#jay ramsay

The sage’s way,
                            Tao
                                    is the way of water.

There must be water for life to be,
and it can flow wherever.

And water, being true to being water,
                             is true
                  to Tao.

Those on the Way of Tao, like water,
need to accept where they find themselves;
and that may often be where water goes
to the lowest places, and that is right.

Like a lake,
                               the heart must be calm and quiet
having great depth beneath it.

The sage rules with compassion,
and his word needs to be trusted.

The sage needs to know like water
how to flow around the blocks
and how to find the way through without violence.

Like water, the sage should wait
for the moment to ripen and be right:

water, you know, never fights;

it slows around
                                   without harm. 

— from The Illustrated Tao Te Ching(translated by Man-Ho Kwok, Martin Palmer, and Jay Ramsay)