Be like water

I found a page called The Simple Tao. I like these tenets a lot. (The last three makes it all a bit too much Real.)

• Tao
  "the way", "the path". it is often represented by water because water always seeks the path of least resistance, yet is strong enough to demolish even stone when no other recourse is available. everything below flows from this.

1. Make your goal effortless action
   avoid unnecessary action or action that is not spontaneous.
   
2. Treasure simplicity
   eliminate whatever is unnecessary and artificial and appreciate the simple and the apparently ordinary.
   
3. Cultivate stillness
   only stillness will clear muddy waters and enable you to see the truth.
   
4. Be patient
   can you remain unmoving until the right action arises?
   
5. Be gentle
   love peace and restraint and avoid all unnecessary violence. "do not regard weapons as lovely things. for to think them lovely means to delight in them, and to delight in them means to delight in the slaughter of men."
   
6. See beauty
   in the mundane and the normal. Apreciate the beauty around you and in yourself.
   
7. Be true
   dedicate your life only to that which you find beautiful or fascinating, and thus be true to yourself.
   

=======

Re: "only stillness will clear muddy waters and enable you to see the truth. "

... This is something I have come to intuitively in recent years.

Many years ago a friend and I was interviewing a photographer on the radio. He shot cityscapes at night. We asked, why at night? He said that when the city is quiet, you can see deeper into it, like into water when its surface is calm. Both of us was so stunned by the aptness of this that we couldn't think of a new question for many seconds of Dead Air.

It's funny actually, I often have a great craving for action. But more and more often,  I also find that I have a craving  for stillness. There's an odd power and depth...

Eolake