Tao by Matsumoto

Watch Today's Tao Video! Lao Tzu answers your question.

69. Enemy

[Chapter 69 / English Translation] - click the line to watch the related video.
There is a saying when you use arms.

Our side dare not be active, but be passive.

Our side dare not advance one inch, but retreat one foot.

This is called advancing without advancing, rolling up the sleeves of no arm, taking up no arms, and pulling in no enemy.


No disaster is as big as underestimating the enemy.

If you underestimate the enemy, you have almost lost my treasures.

Therefore, if two facing armies look like each other, the one sending Love wins.


Rapid Decoded
"Arms" symbolises your hologram. There is a useful teaching in handling your hologram.

Don't be active. Be passive. Use Dark Depth Female.

Don't advance. Return to Tao.

Advance no advancement. Roll up the sleeve of no arm. They sound like a Zen koan, and mean: "Do not act". Both arms and enemies are part of your hologram. Why do you have to use it to damage itself? It doesn't make sense.


Respect "the enemy" because it is part of your hologram.

"My treasures" are sending Love, accepting all, and not trying to control any. (☞See Ch.67) If you don't respect your hologram, which includes "the enemy", you cannot use your three "treasures". In other words, by respecting the enemy, or all others, you can send them Love, accept all of them, and avoid controlling them.

"Two facing armies" suggests you and non-you, or yourself under your control and yourself beyond your control. You and non-you are, after all, the same thing. Both of them are your own self, which is not true You but constitutes your hologram. Therefore, they "look like each other". You and non-you are there as a catalyst to give you opportunities to send Love, that is to say, to emit the fundamental energy Tao.


Videos / YouTube playlist

- 69-1 Use of arms
- 69-2 Be passive
- 69-3 Retreat
- 69-4 Advance without advancing
- 69-5 Underestimating the enemy
- 69-6 Lost treasures
- 69-7 Love wins


[Related Articles]
-Return to Tao. The word "return" and "go back" are very important in Taoism. In this context, the last sentence in this chapter suggests that (by thinking the other way round,) you can return your hologram to the state where it was created.





Read Yama Uba the Zen play

☞The book on the left is «The Way of the Living Sword / Heiho kadensho» by Yagyu, Munenori 柳生宗矩「兵法家伝書」. Yagyu, an excellent samurai swordsman, was a friend of Zen Master Takuan 沢庵禅師, the author of «The Unfettered Mind». The one on the right is «The Art of War» written by Sun Tzu 孫子 probably in the 6th century BC.
  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

(Last modified: 14 November 2011)