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The highest good is like water. The goodness of water lies in benefiting the myriad things without contention, while locating itself in places that common people scorn.
What the common people scorn is the lowly
What Wang Bi means here when he says “common people” [shuren] is “small people” [xiaoren]. That is to say, the distinction that Wang Bi is trying to make here isn’t a demographic or economic one, but rather a moral one. Here I think that a portion of Mencius’s famous debate with Gaozi would provide appropriate illumination:
–Book VI, Part A, Chapter 2. From D.C. Lau’s Translation.
This touches on the vital notion of contention, or coercion. Coercive actions drive the individual away from the Way. In their commentary, Ames and Hall write:
Truly meaningful interaction involves both parties involved not striving for dominance or ‘gaining the higher ground’ but instead all parties act together. This action can be said to be ‘effortless’ because the energies are focused on the task at hand, rather than on objectives that are unrelated, but capable of interfering with the Present.
Therefore it is almost exactly like the Dao.
Whereas the Dao has no physical existence, water does have existence. Thus the text says “almost exactly like.”
This just makes clear the double metaphor that this passage is using. Since the Dao is unknowable/ineffable, we cannot model ourselves after it directly. Instead, we are left with the notion that water shares the same essence as the Dao, so we can model ourselves after water, which (in turn) resembles the Dao.
Goodness in position depends on location; goodness in heart/mind depends on profundity; goodness in association depends on benevolence; goodness in words depends on sincerity; goodness in government depends on order; goodness in affairs depends on ability; goodness in action depends on timeliness. And it is only by avoiding contention that no blame occurs.
This states how, like water, one should always be in resonance this with the Dao.
This is a rather unDaoist portion of a rather unDaoist passage. Despite that, what we see here is a moral foundation such as we would expect from nearly any religiophilosophy. To receive accolades for our actions, we must act in a place where they are appreciated. Likewise, goodness from a personal perspective is profound because it rests in the deepest, most fundamental part of ourselves. Goodness from a social perspective requires co-humanity (benevolence) where we recognize the continuity that extends from ourselves to the other person. Goodness in word rests on the notion that words are actions not-yet made manifest – words that are frivolously spoken demean this and, by extension, action that we undertake. More importantly, they shed light upon actions that we have failed to undertake. Goodness in government depends on that system being in harmony so that it is able to act. For an action, we need more than intent for it to be good, we must also be able to see the task to completion. And in bringing that task to completion, we need to realize that these tasks are tasks of their time and need to have an impact when they are required, otherwise they are useless.
However, the most important point is that, despite the numerous objects in this list, they are all of the same principle: harmony. We must harmonize ourselves with our location, our own selves, our peers, our words and our actions as well as how we bring them to fruition. These aren’t different things listed for our understanding, but a single item presented as a list to facilitate understanding.