"As the water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it,
so a wise man adapts himself to circumstances.” Confucius 551 – 479 BCE
“The best people are like water… empty, clear, and deep…Water can take any shape, and it is never out of touch” Heshang Gong 202 – 157 BCE or "Riverside Sage”
"The supreme man is above all desire for fame. He enters the Tao and takes up his abode in Truth. He lets his intelligence lie fallow and his knowledge diminish. He withdraws himself bodily and flees from Self. He builds himself a house high in the hills, far removed, a mysterious dwelling of utmost emptiness, hung around with wild plants like a mist.
- Water runs around it this way and that, dashing against the rocks.
- The sun peers through the clouds from time to time.
- Drifting blossoms fall brightly into the stream across the way, while the enshrouding mist-looms like mountain peaks.
- He discovers the principles of Heaven and Earth from within his own solitary Being.
- He straddles the four seas within the compass of his Heart and Mind.
- He leaps from the dust of the world and sees things as they are." Tao Te Ching
From Lu Ji (261-303), "Summoning a Hermit":
To still the Unquiet Mind
The Hermit dwells
In a secluded valley,
In the morning
Gathers cress
By the southern waterfall,
In the evening
Rests
At the foot of the western hills...
The splashing of the mountain stream,
The cleansing jade-song of the cascade:
Perfect Joys such as these,
The unsullied Simplicity
Of the uncarved Block,
Cannot be feigned. - From Tao Te Ching, John Minford