Tao by Matsumoto

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31. Arms

[Chapter 31 / English Translation]
Arms are instruments of no good omen.

Things may detest them.

Therefore, a man with Tao doesn't use them.

Usually, a gentleman respect the left.

When he uses arms, he respect the right.


Arms are instruments of no good omen.

They are not the instruments of a gentleman.

If you cannot help using them, doing so without attachment is the best.

Even if you win, it is not beautiful.

If you find it beautiful, you enjoy slaying people.

If you enjoy slaying people, your wish of obtaining the world will not come true.


A happy occasion thinks highly of the left.

An unhappy occasion thinks highly of the right.

A lieutenant general sits on the left.

A general sits on the right.

It means that they treat this like a funeral.

If many people lose their lives, cry with sorrow.

If you win, treat like a funeral.


[Note]
Wang Bi 王弼 (226–249) didn't leave any comment on this chapter. It is assumed that it was not originally written by Lao Tzu. It seems strange that the Taoist Lao Tzu should be talking about war. As Lao Tzu teaches us, Tao by Matsumoto does not want to judge whether it is his writing or not. The editorship would like to leave the readers to decide it. So, there is no decoding here.





Read Yama Uba the Zen play

☞If you are interested in Aikido 合気道, Please read Tatsuo Kimura's «Transparent Power». Whether you like Daito-ryu or not, the book will tell you the ideal of Aikido. The author is a disciple of late Yukiyoshi Sagawa 佐川幸義 and a professor at University of Tsukuba 筑波大学. He is a Aikido-ka martial artist and mathematician who works with Fournier Transforms and Reimann's zeta function. The samurai swordsman Miyamoto, Musashi 宮本武蔵 wrote «The Book of Five Rings / Gorin no Sho 五輪書». He was an excellent painter and calligrapher as well. His idea was 剣禅一如 [ken zen ichi nyo], which means "the sword and Zen are the same."
  1. Tao

 2. Hologram

 3. The floating world Ukiyo

 4. Play

 5. Gate

 6. Dark Depth

 7. Dark Depth Female

 8. Do nothing

 9. Body soul and Spirit soul

10. You and non-you

11. Yin Yang circle

12. No judgement

13. Resistance

14. Satori

15. Act without acting

16. Colour