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天下之至柔，馳騁天下之至堅。無有入無間，吾是以知無為之有益。不言之教，無為之益，天下希及之。
The most yielding thing in the world gallops through the most rigid thing in the world. What has no substance enters where there is no gap. From this I know that doing nothing has benefit. The teaching without words, the benefit of doing nothing: few in the world reach them.
Water passes through stone: Laozi's proof, by image rather than argument, for why non-doing outperforms force.
In Heshang Gong’s reading the softest thing is water. It gets through the hardest thing, and even into a gap that is not there, because it has no fixed shape to be blocked by. Laozi proves the benefit of non-doing by demonstration instead of argument.
The last line is almost a complaint. This is one of several chapters where Laozi seems less interested in persuading than in noting, plainly, how rarely his own advice is followed.
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