Still Water Reflects Clearly Enough to Serve as a Measure

“When water is still, it can clearly reflect eyebrows and beard; when level, it accords with the measuring line, and the master craftsperson takes it as a model.” The sentence appears in The Way of Heaven chapter of the Zhuangzi. It moves from the physical clarity of still water to the stillness of the cultivated mind. The image does not praise inactivity for its own sake; it says that clarity requires disturbance to subside.

Today, that need not mean withdrawing from action. Stillness cannot guarantee a correct judgement, but it can stop urgency, anger and prior assumptions from answering before the evidence does. Stabilising the conditions of judgement may make action more exact.

Source text: https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/way-of-heaven/zh