“So closely correlated was river management and governing power that the very Chinese character for ‘politics’ is derived from root words meaning flood control.” - Steve Solomon, Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilizationġ7. “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless-like water.” - Bruce Leeġ6. “When the Yellow River is at peace, China is at peace.” – Chinese adageġ5. Enough pails of water - a river.” - Chinese proverbġ4. 'Water always has a source and trees always have roots.'- Chinese proverbġ3. “Water doesn't flow if it is level.' - Chinese proverbġ2. “When you drink the water, remember the spring.' - Chinese proverbġ1. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” - Zen sayingġ0. “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. “Time flows away like the water in the river.” - Confuciusĩ. “As the water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it, so a wise man adapts himself to circumstances.” – ConfuciusĨ. It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.” - Tao Te Chingħ. Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive. “Of all the elements in the cosmological construct of the world, Fire, Water, Earth, Mineral and Nature, the Sage takes Water as his preceptor.” - Lao-TzuĦ. 'The sage's transformation of the World arises from solving the problem of water.' - Lao Tzuĥ. The soft overcomes the hard the gentle overcomes the rigid.” - Lao TzuĤ. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. “Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. 'When the speed of rushing water reaches the point where it can move boulders, this is the force of momentum.' - Sun Tzu, The Art of Warģ. 'So a military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: the ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.' - Sun Tzu, The Art of WarĢ. So starting with quotes from Sun Tzu himself and in keeping with one of his key tenets - know your opposition like you know yourself, here are water quotes from Chinese teachings over the millennia…ġ. In my years working in Asia and living in Hong Kong in the mid-1990s, I became a fan of Sun Tzu, the legendary Chinese general who wrote The Art of War 2,500 years ago. Sun’s basic premises-including the importance of controlling key resources, of quietly winning by preparation and superior positioning before the conflict even begins, and of using water to define the field of battle-continue to guide Chinese military and diplomatic strategy today.

In my 2016 post Water and the Art of War: Is China Gaining a Stranglehold on the World Water Supply?, I reported that since the 1962 war between India and China-arguably a war over water-10,000 square kilometers of Tibetan ice are under Indian control and three times more are under Chinese control. Will Sarni posted the South China Morning Post headline “India and China gear up for a new battle, this time over water”, and Stuart Shapiro provided a link to a Byline Times article “War Over Water: The New Flashpoint in the India-China Stand-Off”. But we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it.Recent LinkedIn posts have highlighted the tensions building up between India and China over Chinese control of the water supply flowing out of Tibet. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as-Mr so-and- so, Ms so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so-I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. You're not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are actually-if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning- you're not something that's a result of the big bang. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. But so we define ourselves as being only that. We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. And in the middle, it's dense, isn't it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see? So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. “It's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall.

Zen water quotes