Posts Tagged → strength

when the general is weak, the nation is weak

banksy

 

 
The general

is the bulwark of the nation.

When the bulwark is strong, the nation

is strong. When the bulwark is

weak, the nation is

weak.

 

There

are three ways

in which a ruler can bring

misfortune to his army: if he orders

the army to retreat or advance when it cannot

effectively do so, this is called “hobbling the army”;

if he attempts to administer the army when he does not

know how, its warriors will become frustrated;

if he commands the officers without proper

insight into how they function, this

will undermine their

confidence.

 

Once an army

has been confused like this,

trouble will arise from every direction.

This is known as “inviting chaos

and handing victory to the

opponent.”

💀

 

from The Art of War, Chapter III

 

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Hua hu Ching, Wei wu Wei Ching,

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abide in gentleness and be strong

arrive at the center

 

The

origin and mother

of everything in the world is tao.

Know the mother and you can know

the children. Having known the children,

return to their source and hold on to her.

Abiding by the mother, you are free

from danger, even when

your body

dies.

 

Don’t live

for your senses.

Close your mouth, close

all the body’s openings, reside

in the original unity. In this

way you can pass your

life in peace and

contentment.

 

Open

your mouth,

increase your activities,

start making distinctions between

things, and you’ll toil

forever without

hope.

 

See the subtle and be illuminated.

Abide in gentleness and be strong.

Use your light and return to insight.

 

Don’t

expose yourself

to trouble. This is

following

tao.

 

The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,

Chapter 52

 

ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,

Hua hu Ching, and Art of War for

iPad, Phone, Kindle, Nook,

or Android

 

You

can now buy

Tao te Ching as part of a

five-app bundle of Taoist classics 

for iPhone or iPad for less than

the cost of one hardcover

book.

brian browne walker taoist app bundle ios ipad iphone

 

an object of esteem becomes a nest

giuseppe palmisano

 
Haven’t you seen the saying of Master Yantou that whenever you have an object of esteem, it becomes a nest?…

Those who get a taste for the sayings of people of old make extraordinary sayings and wonderful statements into a nest…Those who get a taste for a state of quiescent silence without words or speech make a nest of closing the eyes and sitting in a ghost cave in a mountain of darkness on the other side of the prehistoric Buddhas. Those who get a taste for the goings-on of daily activities make a nest of raising their eyebrows, blinking their eyes, and alerting attention…

If you do not have a strong will and discipline to step back and realize your error, you will imagine what you esteem to be extraordinary, imagine it to be mysterious and marvelous, imagine it to be peace and security, imagine it to be ultimate, imagine it to be liberation.

Those who entertain such imaginations could not be helped even if the Buddha appeared in the world. In the teachings this is called the confusion of ignorance and benightedness. Why? because you are ignorant you cling to error and consider it right. Because you are benighted you remain plunged into what you esteem and cannot budge.

If you do not produce anything in your mind, and are not fixated on anything, then you have no object of esteem. When you have no object of esteem, you naturally have no greed and no dependence on things, independent in the midst of things, with bare-boned strength. 

If you want such accord right now, it is not difficult; just be equanimous in mind, unaffected by anything. What is affectation? Formulating concepts of sentient beings, concepts of Buddha, concepts of the mundane, concepts of the transcendental, concepts of seeking detachment, concepts of seeking enlightened knowledge. Those are all called affectations.

Just concentrate intensely on the brink of arousal, and leap out in one jump — this mind will be clear, independently liberated. Then as soon as you sense this, turn upward, and you will spontaneously be lucid everywhere; it will be evident in everything. 

When you manage to reach such a state, don’t keep taking note of it. If you keep taking note of it, then you’ll have an object of esteem.
 

Dahui

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