“What makes a great state is its being (like a low-lying down-flowing stream); it becomes the centre to which tend (all the small states) under heaven.
“(To illustrate from) the case of all females:—the female always overcomes the male by her stillness.”[32]
Water is soft, but it wears down the rocks.
“The softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the hardest; that which has no (substantial) existence enters where there is no crevice.”[33]
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The Tao acts like water, and (The Tao) “which originated all under the sky is”, Lao Tze says, “to be considered as the mother of all of them. When the mother is found, we know what her children should be.”[34]
A passage which has puzzled commentators is,
“Great, it (the Tao) passes on (in constant flow). Passing on, it becomes remote. Having become remote, it returns. Therefore the Tao is great.”[35]
The reference may be to the circle of water which surrounds the world. It is possible Lao Tze had it in mind, seeing that he so often compares the action of the Tao to that of water—the Tao that produces and nourishes “by its outflowing operation”.
Like “soul substance”, the Tao is found in all things that live, and in all things that exercise an influence on life. The Tao is the absolute, or, as the Brahmanic sages declared, the “It” which cannot be seen—the “It” in the fruit of the tree, the “It” in man. Lao Tze refers to the “It” as the “One”.
In his chapter, “The Origin of the Law”, he writes: