What if the Tao was not only a river, a mountain, a sky of clouds, but also a sword?

There are many who underestimate the sharp blade of Taoism; its decisiveness and strength when the moment requires it.

There is no softness without hardness, no water without also fire.

When the river turns to ice there are few things that are stronger, and yet the children bathe, laugh and play inside of it again every Summer.

Often a lack of yielding has a lack of purpose, of stubbornness or of strength as its origin. One can simply not find one without first the other.

In this sense, people need not worry about any supposedly impending conflict or war when the battle within oneself has been entered daily, weekly, monthly for one’s entire life.

Strong-willed individuals slay the enemy before he or she even arrives. And it is after these battles have been overcome that the poetry gets written, families unite and lovers kindly embrace. Then in the morning it begins all over again.

A general is a slave to his people and too few people realise this. The same goes for teachers, masters, parents or true practitioners of any kind. These individuals sign up for war before the letter comes in the post; they choose for it for themselves, in service of the Tao and, mostly, because all of us (deep down) know that we have no other choice.

And so to be strong (and to be ‘Tao’) is to surrender to one’s fate; to sign up for one’s destiny, whatever that may be.

It is choosing to die today for everything that we do, just as the great Samurais once spoke of.

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