At a time when America is engaged in endless war against an elusive enemy, there are few verses in the
Dao De Jing more important for our time than Verse 30 - what I have called “The Ravages of War.”
Were we to refine our understanding the of the
Dao De Jing into just single terms, some of the key words would be trust, tranquility, flowing, and allowing. Thus when the text deals with the issue of force its message is strong and direct. When we employ force to affect an outcome, ruin and failure are the very likely results. Yet the
Dao De Jing, does not avoid the problem, because life possesses every potential and serious conflict is one such potential. This document was written primarily to instruct leaders in times of great turbulence and the author clearly acknowledges that problems inevitably arise in life where force becomes one of several options that can be used.
In this Verse we are guided to “prevail” without the use of force or only its most minimal manifestation. Thus the purpose of Verse 30 is to describe just this pathway. Using the translation of David Hinton Verse 30 begins:
If you use the Way to help a ruler of people
you never use weapons to coerce all beneath heaven.
Such things always turn against you.The weapons, the methods, the emotions we use to force situations and to pressure people to do what we would like will turn against us. It is a powerful irony that what we do to be safe, to “do the right thing”, is exactly what must happen to allow for precisely what we
don’t want in life. The text continues:
fields where soldiers camp
turn to thorn and bramble,
and vast armies on the march
leave years of misery behind.
The noble prevail if they must, then stop:
they never press on to coerce the world.Conflict is part of life. It cannot be avoided. Force will rise up and challenge us and the question that we must respond to, often having little or no time to reflect, is, what are we to to address such forces? The Dao says that we are urged to “prevail” but not to press on. Conflict is but a single happening on the field of existence. It arises, possesses life, and finally disappears into the mystery of time and space. It follows the same pattern as any other happening in our world.
Verse 30 continues:
Prevail, but never presume.
Prevail, but never boast.
Prevail, but never exult.
Prevail, but never when there’s another way.
This is to prevail without coercing.We are urged to use force as the very last resort and when it is used, its use must be as parsimonious as circumstances allow. Afterwards, the conflict is left behind us. It is not followed by banal celebrations and ugly national/group/self-adulation (patriotism). How different is the advice of the
Dao De Jing when compared to the actions of nations today and in human history, where war and victory are glorified and made sacred.
Things grown strong soon grow old.
This is called losing the Way:
Lose the Way and you die young.Another of the key terms of the Dao is endurance. Heaven and Earth endure because they are self-less. This is not the case with countries, leaders, organizations, and individuals that feel compelled to become strong and feared. That is the way of the deficient self, for only a self convinced of its own innate deficiency would crave such strength and power. This is why those that
need to be strong and powerful are ugly and frightening. They have lost the way and that losing of the way is rooted far back in the ancestral memory of the people, to a time when they came to believe in their own inadequacy. Ultimately, this is all about the ego’s compensation for its belief in its own worthlessness. Once this inner crucifixion is seen and understood for what it is, a lie, only then are we truly free of the dark hand of the angry ego in our lives.
When the compulsion to employ force arises in our lives, see it as the expression of our belief in our innate powerlessness. Force - rage - violence all equal weakness tied to an unseen belief. Bring this insidious, false belief to the light of clear understanding in the very moment of crisis and a whole new way life blossoms in the heat of the very moment. Namastè
Tags: Force, Anger, rage, violence, identity
