#ja_adler — Public Fediverse posts
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Laotzi's idea of steering a process with minimal intervention, based on responding to emerging developments before they become manifest. Also the basis for a secular explanation of the I Ching: it helps us detect elements of the situation that otherwise remain hidden.
Joseph A Adler has written extensively on how this theme was developed in the various traditions in China between 600 BCE and 1200 CE. A thinker called Xhu Xi, for instance, wrote this in 1188 CE:
"Incipiencies, or the subtle indications of activity, lie between desiring to act and imminent activity, where there is both good [apt choice] and evil [futile choice]. One must understand them at this point. If they reach the point of becoming manifest [they are already set in motion], then one can [no longer] help anything... ."
I sense the same emphasis on detecting the possible in the present in your quote.
Quote from p12 of: https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Writings/Zhu%20Xi%20and%20Yi.pdf