Page 16 - 1.News and Views Spring 2025 for Jim.

I am a sacred tilting vessel © Kit Pearce

Sacred, because I contain that of God, what I prefer to call Tao, within my vessel.

A vessel, because it describes the human form well: we are all ‘hollow men’ (and women), although
my meaning is not that which T.S. Eliot intended. There is a lot of space within our body.

Tilting? For sure, I know a lot about life’s ups and downs.

Picture the legendary sacred tilting vessel. We would call it a water feature but, being in the Chinese
Emperor’s garden, it was no ordinary water feature. It was thought to have been a richly decorated,
possibly gilded, brazen vessel of indeterminate size, a centrepiece within the imperial garden of
antiquity. It was expertly pivoted in its resting position at an angle – not upright.
Every element of its design and operation was intended to reveal the unseen
nature of the Tao made manifest, not least in the perpetual cycle of change, most
famously exemplified in the circular symbol of Yin and Yang.

‘Rather than fill it to the brim by keeping it upright, better to have stopped in time.’
So reads the Tao te Ching IX: 23, one of the core ancient Chinese documents of
Taoism. In some translations, this line has a footnote revealing its oblique reference to the sacred
tilting vessel.

A steady flow of water begins to fill the empty angled vessel, until the extra weight tips it forwards on
its axis, emptying it. Once emptied, it springs back into position, unseen gravity having played its part
again, establishing a regular rhythm. The rhythmical sounds are designed to be calming. Trickling
water flows in and later out. When the vessel strikes each terminus, the stillness of the sacred space is
punctuated by a resounding echo.

Here's why I am a sacred tilting vessel.

In my past, if you imagine cares and concerns, worries and woes as water filling my sacred vessel, their
weight and freight constantly kept me off balance. I could not accept this is how life is: one moment
up, the next moment (too soon, too soon) down again. I was often down.

I fixated on the downward arc, and that freight which I didn’t want to carry. The lift upwards felt too
short-lived. I wanted to remain empty of cares and woes – don’t we all? The prospect of my vessel
refilling, tipping downwards again, overshadowed all.

I tried positive psychology, looking only ‘on the bright side’, the upward arc, when I felt uplifted. It
didn’t work. I was unable to pretend the weight of woes would not bring me low again.

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