"I believe this "crossing at a ford" occurs often in man's lifetime. It means setting sail even though your friends stay in harbour, knowing the route, knowing the soundness of your ship and the favour of the day."

Whether in large-scale military science or individual material arts, the sense of crossing a ford is essential. It should be savored thoroughly.

To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.

To reach a port we must set sail –
Sail, not tie at anchor
Sail, not drift.

How shall we cross the river?

When an invading force crosses a river in its onward march, do not advance to meet it in mid-stream. It will be best to let half the army get across, and then deliver your attack.

bridges appear in our lives only when we are ready to cross them.

If a man crosses a river
and an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
Even though he be bad tempered man
He will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat,
He will shout at him to steer clear.
If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing.
And all because someone is in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty,
He would not be shouting, and not angry.
If you can empty your own boat
Crossing the river of the world,
No one will oppose you,
No one will seek to harm you

"How, dear sir, did you cross the flood?"
"By not halting, friend, and by not straining I crossed the flood."
"But how is it, dear sir, that by not halting and by not straining you crossed the flood?"
"When I came to a standstill, friend, then I sank; but when I struggled, then I got swept away. It is in this way, friend, that by not halting and by not straining I crossed the flood."

The ship is always off course. Anybody who sails knows that. Sailing is being off course and correcting. That gives a sense of what life is about.

When you come to a fork in the road take it

If you cannot get across it, you must get across it, nevertheless.

Rowers have a word for this frictionless state: swing. . . . Recall the pure joy of riding on a backyard swing: an easy cycle of motion, the momentum coming from the swing itself. The swing carries us; we do not force it. We pump our legs to drive our arc higher, but gravity does most of the work. We are not so much swinging as being swung. The boat swings you. The shell wants to move fast: Speed sings in its lines and nature. Our job is simply to work with the shell, to stop holding it back with our thrashing struggles to go faster. Trying too hard sabotages boat speed. Trying becomes striving and striving undoes itself. Social climbers strive to be aristocrats but their efforts prove them no such thing. Aristocrats do not strive; they have already arrived. Swing is a state of arrival.

I had crossed a truth. Did I find it? I don’t know, I think it found me. Why? Because I put myself in a place to be found. I put myself in a place to receive it. How do we know when we cross a truth or a truth crosses us? I believe the truth is all around us all the time. The anonymous angels, the butterflies, the answers, are always right there, but we don’t always identify, grasp, hear, see, or access them — because we’re not in the right place to. We have to make a plan.