Go with the flow

Author: Tang Yansheng, Zhou Zheng, Shu Huaqiang, Li Sheng (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-12-01
Features: Since we are born of nature and subject to fate, we should adopt a correct attitude towards nature and fate, which is to follow nature. Some may say, since we are all born of nature and subject to fate, we should resign ourselves to destiny and let it take its course. Whatever "nature" arranges is what it is, and whatever "nature" wants to do is what it does. Wherever fate "moves" us, we go. Just lie around all day and let nature do as it pleases—shouldn’t that be enough? In reality, this is a misunderstanding. This is not following nature; it is avoiding nature, rejecting nature, and adopting a passive attitude to defy nature.
When we say to follow nature, we do not mean to follow it passively. Instead, we mean to follow it actively. To follow nature passively is to hand yourself over to nature. Whatever nature is like, we accept it as it is, with only a superficial, intuitive understanding of its surface; whatever nature is like, we become like it; whatever demands nature makes, we do as it asks. Before us, nature does as it pleases, and we can only accept and obey it, daring not to defy or resist it—we become slaves of nature.
Passive following of nature does not even acknowledge the conflict between humans and nature, let alone the contradiction. In short, it does not recognize the dialectical relationship in following nature. Active following of nature is the opposite of passive following. It requires us to respect nature while also understanding and learning about it. Through the phenomena of nature, and through subjective processing—filtering the essence, discarding the dross, separating the truth from the falsehood, and moving from the surface to the essence—we come to understand the nature of nature.