MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

it is difficult to understand the need
for a warrior under heaven
but conflict is a fact of life
that lies at the heart of conflict’s absence

peace

so you must behave like a warrior
when a warrior is needed

the ancient child asks
how do you behave like a warrior

act as a defender and not as an invader
march forward without appearing to march forward
be lazy about tying up your war coat
utilize a war hand only as needed
use your empty hand before drawing a sword
be measured and resolute in battle
even though you would rather abstain

the greatest harm you can do is to
treat your opponent lightly

give him his due and win the day
or you will lose touch with your inner world

when two opposing forces meet
and do combat
the one that is compassionate and yielding
will surely conquer
the other

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching; An authentic Taoist translation. translated by John Bright-Fey

Much of Taoism can be reduced to this: make yourself adaptable to the way the world is and do not try to make the world as you would like it to be. While our words and labels are just that—mere constructs of our own making, useful tools for navigating, but not really the things-in-themselves—those constructs do refer to something real. That is the Tao source of life, the objective reality which transcends subjective experience. It is what our subjective perspectives encounter and interpret in the form of symbols—thoughts, shapes, and sounds emergent from preceptive projection onto an otherwise unfathomable universe.

In short, whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not, some things are facts. Truth is made of the same stuff as the universe, unknowable in its entirety, but nonetheless impactful on our existence. Perhaps you find it difficult to accept: power is a fact, as are competence, hierarchy, success, failure, weakness, envy, pain, and terror. Unfairness is a fact as much as is fairness, and so is violence as much as peace.

This is why it is necessary for us to become warriors—individuals capable of fighting off the arbitrary, random, malevolent, and predatory elements of life. Either we fight or we succumb. It does no good to wish the situation were otherwise, though likely some of you are tempted to ask, “Would it not be better to make a world where warriors, violence, and struggle were unnecessary?”

If you are asking this question, then you do not understand what it means to have peace.

Just as within the Yang and Yin each contains a bit of its opposite, so too does peace contain war in its essence. That is to say that peace is meaningless if war does not exist as a condition to set against it. Without ever knowing the pain or fear of violence, there is no way to value its absence. The borders of a concept are drawn by describing what it is in relation to what it is not. Therefore, to wish a world without war is to wish also for a world without peace—that is, to wish for “Utopia” (i.e. No Place).

So instead of wishing for a world absent of violence, we ought to cultivate within ourselves the capacity to bring about peace in the face of conflict. That is the balance. Become powerful enough to crush your enemies and then…use only what force is necessary in the moment. Escalate judiciously and only when de-escalation is impossible. And whether a conflict comes to blows or can be settled with words, it is incumbent upon us to treat our enemies with respect. After all, we are us in part in opposition to them. To the degree that we are virtuous in our restraint, it is because they are not. Forget this, and we risk erasing the borders between us and them.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Sixty-Nine”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.130