Patterns of the flood

[Bindi]

A book I’m reading at the moment, “The thread of the Dao” by Dan G Reid, asserts that Daoism developed  as an extension of the story “Patterns of the flood.” I’ve posted a couple of relevant paragraphs from his book below a Wikipedia article on the legend. This information is fundamentally interesting, but I also have a personal take on the story. 
 

Great Flood legend

Main article: Great Flood (China)

During the reign of Emperor Yao, the Chinese heartland was frequently plagued by floods that prevented further economic and social development.^[25] Yu's father, Gun, was tasked with devising a system to control the flooding. He spent more than nine years building a series of dikes and dams along the riverbanks, but all of this was ineffective, despite (or because of) the great number and size of these dikes and the use of a special self-expanding soil. As an adult, Yu continued his father's work and made a careful study of the river systems in an attempt to learn why his father's great efforts had failed.

Collaborating with Hou Ji, a semi-mythical agricultural master, Yu successfully devised a system of flood controls that were crucial in establishing the prosperity of the Chinese heartland. Instead of directly damming the rivers' flow, Yu made a system of irrigation canals which relieved floodwater into fields, as well as spending great effort dredging the riverbeds.^[12] Yu is said to have eaten and slept with the common workers and spent most of his time personally assisting the work of dredging the silty beds of the rivers for the thirteen years the projects took to complete. The dredging and irrigation were successful, and allowed ancient Chinese culture to flourish along the Yellow River, Wei River, and other waterways of the Chinese heartland. The project earned Yu renown throughout Chinese history, and is referred to in Chinese history as "Great Yu Controls the Waters" (大禹治水; Dà Yǔ zhì shuǐ). 

 

The "Pattern of the Flood" reflects two contrasting approaches to navigating overwhelming forces, often symbolized by water. In ancient Chinese myth, Emperor Gun attempts to control the flood by building massive dams to block its flow. His rigid resistance ultimately fails, and his transformation into a being symbolizing futility reflects the limitations of suppression. In contrast, Gun's successor, Emperor Yu, adopts a transformative approach by removing dam walls, dredging riverbeds, and guiding the water into new, harmonious channels. This paradigm shift from forceful suppression to adaptive redirection symbolizes wisdom and balance, teaching that enduring solutions arise from working with, rather than against, the natural flow.

 

The story of Emperor Gun and Emperor Yu can be deeply symbolic of the emotional clearing process within the heart and mind. Gun’s strategy of building dams mirrors the common response of suppressing or avoiding emotions, attempting to block or contain overwhelming feelings like fear, grief, or anger. While this approach may seem effective temporarily, it often leads to increased pressure and eventual failure, as suppressed emotions can erupt in unpredictable and harmful ways.

Yu’s approach, on the other hand, represents emotional clearing—working with emotions rather than against them. By removing barriers (the dam walls), dredging the riverbed (delving into the depths of buried emotions), and creating new channels (redirecting emotional energy constructively), Yu allows the floodwaters to flow naturally. This mirrors the process of acknowledging, understanding, and releasing emotions in a healthy way, enabling a state of balance and harmony.

Applying this wisdom to the heart/mind suggests that clearing emotional blockages is not about suppression or avoidance but about creating space for emotions to be felt and processed. Just as Yu's method resolved the flood sustainably, emotional clearing allows for deeper healing, resilience, and the ability to flow with life’s challenges.

 

But very importantly I would emphasise that unlike the lesson of wuwei referred to in the second image above as the solution, Emperor Yu's approach to managing the flood transcends passive acceptance of natural forces (associated with the Daoist concept of wu wei, or effortless action) by incorporating deliberate, active intervention. While wu wei emphasizes harmony with the natural order, Yu’s method aligns with an understanding that achieving balance sometimes requires proactive engagement.

 

Yu's active removal of blockages—such as dredging riverbeds, creating channels, and ensuring water flowed where it naturally should—demonstrates the necessity of addressing obstacles that inhibit harmony. His interventions are not about overpowering or suppressing nature (as Gun attempted) but about working with its inherent tendencies to restore equilibrium.

This aligns with a nuanced interpretation of wu wei: it does not mean doing nothing but rather doing what is essential and in alignment with the greater flow. Yu exemplifies this by acting thoughtfully and purposefully, removing impediments while respecting the water's natural direction.

In a spiritual sense, this could parallel the process of emotional clearing. While one might strive to flow with life’s challenges, actively addressing internal blockages—such as unprocessed emotions, karmic patterns, or mental clutter—ensures that one can align more fully with the natural flow of life. Yu’s proactive yet harmonious method shows that spiritual growth often requires intentional effort to remove barriers while remaining aligned with larger, universal principles.

 

From personal experience I further interpret Gun as a symbol of the ultimate karmic bind, his approach to addressing the flood—constructing dams to restrain the water—parallels the way karma can limit and confine the flow of energy, emotion, and spirit within an individual. The karmic bind represents accumulated patterns, unresolved emotions, and restrictive tendencies that attempt to control life's natural flow, often leading to stagnation or eventual upheaval when the pressure becomes too great.

Gun's ultimate failure highlights the futility of attempting to suppress or rigidly manage karma without addressing its deeper causes. His transformation into a creature (a giant fish, mythical dragon or other being, depending on the version) might symbolise how the karmic bind can manifest in unexpected and distorted forms, influencing our lives and perceptions.

Yu, by contrast, represents liberation from the karmic bind. By removing barriers, dredging the riverbed, and redirecting water into natural channels, Yu demonstrates how acknowledging and transforming karmic patterns can restore balance and flow. This approach resonates with spiritual practices aimed at clearing karma—not by suppression but through understanding, acceptance, and purposeful redirection of energy.

To me the lesson is clear: while Gun’s karmic bind creates pressure and limits growth, Yu’s method frees the individual, aligning them with the natural rhythms of life and enabling a harmonious relationship with the forces within and around them.

Some authors have tried to relate the emperors in the pattern of floods story to historical figures that were engaged in actual efforts to respond to flooding in China. From Wikipedia:

Historicity

There is no evidence suggesting the existence of Yu as a historical figure until several centuries after the invention of writing in China, during the Western Zhoudynasty—nearly a millennium after the traditional dating of his reign. What was eventually recorded in historiography consists of myth and legend. No inscriptions on artifacts dated to the supposed era of Yu, or the later oracle bones, contain any mention of him. The first archeological evidence of Yu comes from vessels made about a thousand years after his supposed death.^[39]

During the early 20th century, the Doubting Antiquity School of historiography theorized that Yu was not a person in the earliest legends, but rather a god or mythical beast who was connected with water, and possibly with the mythical Dragon Kings and their control over water. According to this theory, Yu was represented on ceremonial bronzes by the early Xia people, and by the beginning of the Zhou dynasty, the legendary figure had morphed into the first man, who could control water, and it was only during the Zhou Dynasty that the legendary figures that now precede Yu were added to the orthodox legendary lineage. According to the Chinese legend Yu the Great was a man-god.

 

 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Bindi

[Nungali]

Nice read , thanks.

 

Everything needs a pressure relief valve  .... otherwise.

 

reading the above , I thought of the Nile and its 'overflow basin ' The Fayum'  - a sort of natural built in  overflow basin .

 

Now I am wondering how the first 5 civilizations might have been effected and developed ' philosophically '  according to their type of rivers

 

Nile ;  contained    but within and area that floods, with the flood relatively contained within the valley and with a huge  'side storage facility ' .  Preparation , calculation  and post flood surveying   important - other wise  people's  field boundaries are lot )

 

The Nile and The Fayum

 

 

Mesopotamia  ; twin river system  where  many civilizations developed down in the floodplain and delta , so much flooding (and probably  the  origin of the western 'great flood' myth .  Also  some of their philosophies  seem to  suggest they thought they where being punished  ( too noisy , wipe them out with a flood ) .

 

B.M.A.C. ;  Oasis civilization ; the rivers fan out into scrub, then desert and disappear into the sands .  I dont recall any mention of floods there . Destruction or decline could result from a river changing its course .

 

China ; massive river system/s  , relatively uncontained , huge floods over the land in multiple areas .  You cant do much about that except  'work with it ' .

 

I.V.C. ;  I don't know much about 'Harrapa'  and as far as latter  times go , their philosophy  ( Rig Veda ) may have been an 'import ' ... ... so ?

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Nungali

[Mark Foote]

21 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

This aligns with a nuanced interpretation of wu wei: it does not mean doing nothing but rather doing what is essential and in alignment with the greater flow.
 

From a piece I'm currently writing:
 

Gautama would generally describe a set of four "corporeal" concentrations, and then describe the set of five "incorporeal" concentrations.   
 

“Corporeal” is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “relating to a person's body”. The four corporeal concentrations concern the body in that they culminate in a cessation of habit and volition in the activity of the body. In particular, they culminate in a cessation of habit and volition in the activity of inhalation and exhalation.
 

About the five “incorporeal" concentrations, Gautama said very little. My understanding is that they have to do with the experience of things that are beyond the range of the senses. According to Gautama, the “incorporeal” concentrations culminate in a cessation of habit and volition in the activity of the mind, in particular a cessation of habit and volition in the activity of feeling and perceiving.

 

The cessation of habit and volition in speech, deed, and mind, is not the cessation of speech, deed, and thought. I think it does match the description "wu-wei", however--doing nothing yet everything is done.

I've spent my life since age 25 attempting to reconcile the experience of action of the body without habit or volition with the demands of everyday life for the exercise of habit and volition. That would seem to be the issue you are addressing, in your conclusion about the interpretation of wu-wei.

 

What I discover is that the mindfulness that Gautama referred to as his way of living only requires a return to the cessation of habit and volition in the activity of the body, as appropriate:

 

Gautama often referred to the four “corporeal” concentrations, together with an overview of the body taken after the fourth, as “the five limbs” of concentration. My guess is that he generally practiced “the five limbs”, and only occasionally took up the "incorporeal" concentrations.

I believe the practice of the five limbs was a necessary part of the mindfulness that was Gautama’s way of living.

Gautama described his way of living as a mindfulness of the body, the feelings, the mind, and the mental states, a mindfulness set up through sixteen contemplations, each made with an awareness of breathing in or breathing out (SN 54.12; PTS vol. V p 289).  Among the sixteen was the contemplation of “cessation”:

Contemplating cessation I shall breathe in. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe out.

 

(SN 54.1; Pali Text Society vol. V p 275-276)
 

 

The contemplation of “cessation” while breathing in and while breathing out is particularly conducive to the cessation of habit and volition in inhalation and exhalation, particularly if there has been a recent experience of “the five limbs”.

 

I have summarized the actionable elements of Gautama’s mindfulness:

 

1) Relax the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation;

2) Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation;

3) Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation;

4) Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of inhalation and exhalation.

 

In my experience, once the elements above are brought into awareness, they tend to interchange in a natural way.

Gautama declared the mindfulness set up through the sixteen elements to be the “best of ways”, and his usual way of living in the rainy season (SN 54.11; PTS vol. V p 289; see also MN 118).
 

 

Hopefully I will post the complete piece on my site soon.  

The reconciliation of "wu-wei" with everyday life requires only being able to "wu-wei" with regard to the activity of the body in the appropriate moment, and for most purposes that can be set up in regular seated meditation.  Nevertheless, the result is as Shunryu Suzuki said:
 

So, when you practice zazen, your mind should be concentrated in your breathing and this kind of activity is the fundamental activity of the universal being. If so, how you should use your mind is quite clear. Without this experience, or this practice, it is impossible to attain the absolute freedom.

 

(“Thursday Morning Lectures”, November 4th 1965, Los Altos; emphasis added)